Timelines
by PrincessFoxSpaceNinja
Summary: After Pythor went back in time to ensure that the Overlord wins, Lloyd is thrust into an alternative timeline. With the ninjas separated and/or enslaved, can the Green Ninja repair the timeline? And with his father still alive, will he?
1. Makeup and Glitter

**Hello and please enjoy my new fic, starting with a single, short chapter.  
**

* * *

 _ **Lloyd**_

Lloyd was, above all else, a child.

A child who, despite having aged from the age of nine to fourteen in the span of one night, was going to continue being a child.

He had plans for that night. Plans to prank his friends while they were sleeping in a way that they had never been pranked before.

* * *

For Kai, Lloyd did the classic "Glue all the furniture but the bed to the ceiling" prank, which changed his sneaking skills as the Fire Ninja was a very light sleeper and would get mad if he was woken in the middle of the night.

Cole was easier, being the one who slept like a rock. Lloyd put specially purchased makeup on Cole as he threatened to inhale the curtains as he snored.

Shocking pink lipstick, pale blue eye shadow (which didn't blend well with Cole's dark skin tone, but that was the idea), bright orange blush and even fake eyelashes of the darkest, thickest kind. He was going to wake up pretty.

Zane was, like Kai, a light sleeper, so he had to be careful again. Thankfully, Zane wouldn't get mad if he were woken up earlier than needed, but it was Pixal that was the real problem.

She didn't sleep.

She didn't _need_ to.

Lloyd brought out his well-planned pranking supplies.

It was going to be glitter.

Blue glitter, silver glitter, green glitter, red glitter, and every other colour glitter, dumped out on Zane and the rest of his room. The Nindroid would be finding glitter demons for weeks, maybe even months, and even better, Pixal didn't see him.

Nya was a heavy sleeper, unlike her brother, but she also made weird sound and talked as she slept. On this particular night, she was calling for Jay and when she wasn't, she was barking.

Lloyd pulled out the stick-it notes.

"Jay!" Came the mournful cry as the first few sticky papers were stuck to her face. "Jay, come back! Please! I'm sorry!"

Lloyd didn't know what Nya was sorry for, but she spent the next five minutes barking like an angry Rottweiler while more stick-it notes were put on her.

"Please! Jay, don't go!" More barking followed.

In the end, Nya's sleeping habits chased Lloyd out of the room and into Jay's room.

* * *

Jay was said to be the heaviest sleeper in all of Ninjago, so he was going to be the easiest to prank out of all of them.

Cole once said that one could tap-dance to Heavy Metal so loud one could go deaf on top of Jay's head and he _still_ wouldn't wake up.

Throwing a bucket of water over him wouldn't wake him either.

There was only one thing Jay would wake up for, but Cole decided that he wanted cake more than he wanted to say what would wake the Blue Ninja of Lightning.

Lloyd already had a plan.

He was going to take Jay and stick him to the ceiling while he slept, kind of the reverse of his prank on Kai.

When he got in Jay's room, he found the Blue Ninja cuddling with a jar of Gummi Ninjas.

Lloyd didn't want to accidently break the jar and leave little shards of glass for his friend to hurt himself on, so he took the jar and put it on the table next to the bad.

Big mistake.

BIG MISTAKE.

 _ **BIG MISTAKE.**_

Jay started making the same kind of sound an injured dog makes. He pawed at the thin air, as if trying to grab on to something.

He was twitching, a good indicator that he was going to wake up if Lloyd didn't do something soon.

Then it happened.

The prank backfired.

Jay had Lloyd.

Jay had Lloyd, and he didn't seem very willing to let go of him.

If Lloyd struggled and tried to get away, he was going to wake Jay, which would ruin the entire prank.

Then Jay turned around, still holding on to Lloyd, forcing the Green Ninja to stay where he was.

It was hard to fall asleep, though. At some point, Jay grabbed on to Lloyd's face like the facehugger alien in that one movie that still gave Lloyd nightmares and made inhuman sounds that matched the creature.

As the night went on, Lloyd went on to wish he went with the age-old "warm water" prank instead of trying to glue Jay to the ceiling.

Especially when Jay went on to use Lloyd as a pillow.

* * *

Lloyd woke up in a bed that was not his own and staring at Jay's "good morning" face.

"Good morning, Honey," Jay cheerily greeted.

Ugh.

 _Morning people._

"I'd kiss you, but I didn't brush my teeth yet and you deserve fresh, minty breath," Jay continued.

Lloyd knew that there was a reason he hated morning people.

Inhuman, the lot of them. With their getting out of bed as soon as the sun came up, and their happy, preppy smiles at the breakfast table while everybody else was feeling like dirt, just coming back from their morning jogs…

"You know, when I went out on my morning jog today…"

Lloyd confessed his eternal hatred to Jay, who shrugged and left, presumably to brush his teeth.

"Morning, Cole. You look very pretty today," Jay's voice said.

Cole made a surprised sound, then he let out a scream. "I LOOK LIKE A CLOWN!"

"A very pretty clown," Jay said in an agreeing tone of voice.

 _Morning people._

Cole seemed to agree with Lloyd.

"What are you doing up this early anyway?" he asked. "It's _Saturday_."

"I was out on my morning jog, and the weirdest thing…"

"Jay, it's _waaay_ too early for me to care about anything right now. It's 5:30 in the morning."

Wait.

Jay was already awake.

Lloyd had the perfect chance to get back in his _own_ bed and sleep for the rest of the day.

Or at least until noon.

* * *

 **I hope you enjoy this chapter**

 **Warning: Jay is just messing with Lloyd. I will not be shipping them.  
**

 **Nya had a dream that Jay was leaving her because she had been turned into a dog, just in case you're curious. Also, somebody looks to be a morning person. ;).  
**

 **The first few chapters are just a prologue. It gets more exciting, I swear.**


	2. Stuck! in the slide

_**Lloyd**_

Lloyd was, despite being the Green Ninja of Legend, still a child.

A child who was, even after all these years, still not quite used to how much bigger he was than he was supposed to be.

Because of this, Lloyd still forgot that he was too big to fit in certain spaces.

Spaces that included the kid's playground at Ninja-Ninja's.

* * *

Jay was laughing so hard, Lloyd was sure he was going to burst.

His laughter got the attention of Cole and Kai, one of which joined Jay in falling over from the laughter and the other who was Kai, looking like he was doing his very best not to laugh.

Lloyd was stuck in the tube slide.

Lloyd Garmadon, the Green Ninja who defeated the Dark Lord, was stuck in the tube slide of a kiddie play area, and his hair was standing up because of the static.

"Laugh. I know you want to." Lloyd wiggled to try and get himself unstuck, but if anything, he was more stuck than before.

"It's not funny," Kai said, looking away from Lloyd.

Kai coughed.

Kai turned as red as his suit and joined Cole and Jay on the floor, laughing so hard he couldn't even make a sound and clapped his hands whenever he managed to catch his breath.

Lloyd wished he had laser eyes, because if he did, he could laser Kai in half for finding amusement in his suffering.

"Hey!" the kid behind Lloyd cried. "Move your butt!"

Lloyd pushed the kid back with his foot. The kid licked his foot. Lloyd started wishing that he kicked instead of gently push.

The three others had tears coming out of their eyes from laughing so hard once Lloyd told them that the kid had licked his foot.

By the time Zane came to see where everybody else had gone, Lloyd had given up hope and resigned himself to a life of being stuck in a hole.

"Lloyd, how did you get stuck in there?" Zane asked, sounding both confused and amused. "You are too big to play in there."

"Tell me about it!" the kid behind Lloyd groaned. Lloyd stuck his foot in the kid's mouth.

He forgot that the mouth is the place teeth are kept.

"OW!"

* * *

Lloyd could trust Zane.

Lloyd could trust Zane, because no matter how much the Nindroid wanted to laugh, he still went to get help in the form of Nya and several sticks of butter.

Nya hid her face in her hands and cried. "This is why I don't go out in public with you guys!"

Cole smeared the butter around Lloyd's middle. He got hit with a lot of static electricity, which caused his hair to stand up almost as much as Lloyd's, but much more obviously because of Cole's black hair and Lloyd's light hair.

Jay knocked on the plastic tube. "Hey, you still there, foot-kid?"

"My name's Timmy!" the foot-kid answered.

"Timmy, we buttered our buddy, so if you could just push him a little so we can get him out, we'll be very happy," Jay told the foot-kid.

"What if he farts?" the foot-kid asked.

"Then we'll put up a statue for you," Kai told the foot-kid. "Right here, so everybody will remember little Timmy, who was farted to death."

The foot-kid giggled.

Lloyd did not.

"Kai, sometimes I can't believe we're related," Nya scolded. Kai winked at her. She hissed at him.

It must've been quite the sight, with Kai and Zane on either side of Lloyd, pulling him by the arms, while Nya had him by the head and Cole had him by the torso.

And then, there was the fact that Jay crawled in and was helping the foot-kid push Lloyd.

 _Just wait,_ Lloyd thought to himself. _You'll get stuck too when you try to get out._

A couple of confused staff members and curious customers came to the area when they saw what was happening and took photos and videos.

Nya let go of Lloyd's head and shooed the people away, threatening to drench them in water if they didn't.

 _Pop._

Lloyd shot out, landing on top of the least soft ninja in all of Ninjago, the Titanium Ninja.

* * *

Life was unfair.

Lloyd was more sure of that now than ever before.

Jay, the one who laughed his head off at Lloyd for getting stuck, slipped out without getting stuck.

"It's because you have more muscle," Zane told Lloyd. "Kai, Cole, Nya and I would've all gotten stuck too."

"It's unfair." Lloyd folded his arms. "I get stuck and laughed at, and _he_ has no problem getting out."

"You have more muscle," Kai said, repeating Zane's statement. "And there was still butter left over from when we had to unstick you, so he had an easier time getting out."

"I wish I had laser eyes," Lloyd said as Jay and Nya got in the car. Jay tensed up and Nya shot Lloyd a dirty look, as if he said some kind of horrible swearword.

"Don't say that," Nya scolded as Jay started the car. "Never say that again."

Lloyd grinned. Finally, something that would cause Jay's peppy mood to stop.

"Laser eyes!" Lloyd shouted. "Laser eyes, laser eyes, laser eyes!"

"Lloyd, people are staring," Kai sighed, leaning back as he spoke. Lloyd, still not quite rid of all the static electricity he gathered in the play area, poked Kai and gave him a shock. Kai let out a shout. "I thought Jay was the Master of Lighting, not you!"

Jay let out a laugh.

Nya hid her face again.

"Guys, you're going to have to scoot over or someone's getting sat on," Cole warned when he opened the car door.

Nya climbed over to the back seat. "You can go sit there," she said, gesturing to her former seat. Cole accepted her gesture with a grateful smile.

Lloyd sighed.

"Maybe we can go to Mega Monster Amusement Park next week," Nya suggested. "They don't have any rides to get stuck on."

Lloyd glared at her. She giggled.

Lloyd stopped glaring. It was no use.

Kai fell asleep on Zane's shoulder, while the Nindroid looked very surprised.

Lloyd focused the rest of his attention on the little ninja/squirrel hybrid toy he got with his kiddie meal.

He didn't want to focus on the other ninjas.

They were bugging him.

* * *

 **I'm aware that the tube things aren't that small in the kiddie playgrounds, I just made them smaller for amusement. I also want to fully explore Lloyd's relationship with the other ninjas before the good stuff begin. Previous chapter: Jay. This chapter: Kai. Please say who Lloyd is supposed to be bugged by next in the review section if you want.  
**


	3. Follow the Moths

_**Lloyd**_

Lloyd didn't even _like_ moths.

When he was a kid (or at least still _looked_ like one), right after the Hypnobrai abandoned him, he met a moth the size of a small dog that sat on his head and no matter how much he screamed and flailed his arms, the moth wouldn't leave.

Nya didn't care.

"They're _endangered_ , Lloyd," Nya told him, "fixing" his hair with a handful of Kai's hair gel. "And as the Green Ninja, you're going to have to try and be green."

"Can't I just dump green paint over myself?" Lloyd asked, sighing as Nya slicked his hair back. "I don't wanna go."

"Nya! Why's my hair gel missing?!" Kai shouted from his bedroom. "I need it!"

"I have it right here!" Nya yelled back to her brother. "I'm helping Lloyd with his hair!"

"Don't let him have the gel!" Jay's voice yelled. "He's going to make his hair look like fire!"

"Jay you traitor!"

Nya rolled her eyes as the sounds of things crashing and people running filled the background.

* * *

Kai never got his hands on his hair gel.

Nya hid it somewhere when she went to put on her dress for the event.

Lloyd had taken off his uncomfortable bowtie (which was choking him) and was about to fix his hair, when Nya came back, wearing a fancy red and blue dress.

"LLOYD!" Nya put Lloyd's bowtie back on for him. "Come on, this is _serious_!"

"I don't even _like_ moths," Lloyd cried as the uncomfortable bowtie was put back on again.

"The Star-Winged Goldmoth is an endangered species and if we're there, people will be more likely to come to the fundraiser to save them," Nya argued. "Besides, it's not like they're going to eat you."

Lloyd made sarcastic sounds at her, to which she responded by taking out a handkerchief from her purse and using it to clean his face. "Look, people look up to you. You're Ninjago's saviour. So, if you tell people that the Goldmoths deserve to be preserved, then you'll have already done them a big favour."

"What do they even do?" Lloyd grumbled. "Except sit in people's hair, I mean. They're useless and buggy."

"Lloyd, right now, _you're_ buggy," Nya scolded, putting her handkerchief back in her purse.

"The Star-Winged Goldmoth is believed to protect against evil," Zane said matter-of-factly as he walked into the room, looking for his fancy grey jacket. "But a better reason to keep them around is because they are the only known pollinators of several endangered species of plant and have been proven to lower one's stress-levels significantly when ingested, as well as act as a natural antidepressant."

Zane found his jacket and left the room, as if he hadn't just blurted out the most random and useless facts that Lloyd ever heard. Along with the fact that some people _eat_ the moths.

Nya looked like she was going to throw up.

 _How_ dare _she be more green than me,_ Lloyd thought to himself, angrily fixing his bowtie as Nya went to get a glass of cold water to drink before they left.

* * *

The fundraiser thing for the moths were being held outside, in a butterfly reserve, in the natural habitat for the Goldmoths.

Speaking of Goldmoths…

Lloyd doubted that they were endangered at all, because there were thousands of the cursed things fluttering around.

The moths seemed to have quite the liking for Jay. So many of them were swarming around the Master of Lightning that he couldn't even be seen anymore.

Some photographers went over to take photos of the moths swarming around Lloyd's friend.

"Oh, it looks like they like your friend," a voice said behind Lloyd.

When Lloyd turned around, there was a middle-aged man in a pale pink suit grinning at him. The man had long black hair, which was tied back ever so neatly, and looked to be from somewhere east of Ninjago.

Lloyd made a face at the man, who chuckled. "There's no need to be jealous, it looks like they like _you_ too."

Something was fluttering around in his hair.

Two somethings.

A photographer came to take a photo of Lloyd, demanding that he keep his head still, because they wanted to get a good photo, and this was their first chance.

"Star-Winged Goldmoths love areas with frequent electrical storms and strong winds," the man in the pink suit informed Lloyd, as if he was supposed to want to know that. "And back when I was a young boy, my father used to tell me that if you follow them when the time is right, they'll lead you to what you didn't know you needed."

A moth landed on Lloyd's face and he wanted to slap it off. "Do you really believe that?" he asked.

The man just laughed and walked away.

Jay was running to escape from the moths and the photographers.

Neither seemed very willing to leave Jay alone.

Cole joined the chase.

* * *

The man in the pink suit was the person who started the charity.

Weird.

After the man gave a speech, Lloyd found him with Nya, showing her various photos of the different kinds of Goldmoths.

"And that's the Desert Goldmoth, and that's the Big-Eye Goldmoth, see? It looks like its staring at you," the man informed Nya. "Ooh, and that's my favourite, the Silver Goldmoth."

Nya _had_ to be faking interest. She _had_ to.

 _Weirdo Moth-Guy._

"Nya, can we go home now?" Lloyd asked. "I'm tired."

Nya was about to say something, when Jay popped up. "Why do they call it the Star-Winged Goldmoth?" Jay asked. "Those things were all round me all night long, and they are neither gold, nor starry."

"Well," the man said, smiling brightly, "it's because, as caterpillars, they look like gold. And the star part is because people of the old days believed that if you make a wish…"

Jay and Nya tensed.

"… when seven of them are sitting on you for seven minutes straight, then it will come true."

"Guys! Come check out what Zane found!" Cole yelled.

* * *

Zane found a plant with several tiny little green specks on the leaves.

"They are laying eggs," Zane told the others, mystified. "Where's Jay and Nya? They should come see this too."

The four of them ran all over the place, looking for either one of the two blue ninjas, but finding none.

"The car's gone!" Kai gasped when he came back from the parking lot. "I can't believe they left _without_ us!"

* * *

Nya was back fifteen minutes later, with the car, after Kai lectured her over the phone for a good few minutes.

Just like Kai, Lloyd was outraged at being left behind.

"I can't believe you guys left us behind!" Lloyd cried. "Why?!"

"That's none of your business."

"YOU LEFT US BEHIND! THAT MAKES IT OUR BUSINESS!" Kai yelled.

Nya responded by poking Kai in the face.

That didn't calm him down.

"Where's Jay?" Cole asked, looking around for the one ninja who wasn't in the car.

"I took him to the hospital," Nya said, staring at the road in front of them. "They were _going_ to tell me what was wrong, when _Kai_ started yelling at me to come get you guys."

"What happened?" Cole asked quietly. "Is he okay?"

"I hope so," Nya sighed. "He passed out."

The car became quiet.

"I wish Jay was here," Lloyd said once the quiet became too much. "Then things wouldn't be so quiet."

The car stopped.

"Say that word again, and you're _walking_ home." The car started running again.

Lloyd sighed.

"I wish you didn't take my hair gel," Kai grumbled behind Nya. "I wanted to…"

Nya slammed her feet against the brakes. The car stopped.

"What did I just say?!"

Everybody stopped talking.

"Get out of the car," Nya ordered.

"What?"

"Get out of the car, right now, all of you," Nya hissed. "You're walking home. And I don't _care_ if home's flying a hundred miles in the air, you're walking."

Soon the car just had Nya in it, and she was driving in the direction of Ninjago City.

"Lloyd, you still have a moth in your hair," Zane said, reaching for Lloyd's hair and removing one of the light yellow moths from the night from it.

The moth immediately fluttered away.

* * *

 **The Goldmoths are a completely fictional spiecies and will be seen again later.  
**

 **Jay blacked out after the moth man said "wish" too many times and Nya had to take him to the hospital because she didn't know what to do. She's just a little upset. DOn't worry, the guys get home okay!**

 **Please say in the reviews who you want to bug Lloyd next; Cole or Zane?**


	4. Snow and Fingernails

_**Pythor**_

Pythor was what one might call bitter.

Bitter, vengeful and very, very, _very…_

Patient.

So obviously, when he read in the human newspaper that Cyrus Borg had built a time machine and was working on creating another, the gears in his head started spinning.

All he'd have to do was wait for the snack to finish the time machine, then, he could go back to ensure that his Master won Ninjago all those years ago.

 _And the only thing stopping me,_ Pythor thought to himself, _is the fact that the machine isn't finished just yet._

* * *

 _ **Lloyd**_

When Lloyd woke up, the world around him was covered in a thick layer of snow.

It was so pretty, he didn't even bother to change out of his pyjamas to go outside and play in it.

Jay didn't seem very happy about the snow, though. Lloyd could hear him yelling about it, and the others trying to calm him down, all the way from the outside.

"I grew up in the desert!" Jay yelled after he put a coin in the swear jar. "We don't have that white bullshit out there!"

Another coin was tossed into the jar after Cole raised an eyebrow at his friend.

"It barely even _rains_ out there! I can't go out on my morning run with all of this crap in the way!"

Another coin.

Lloyd had a feeling that the jar would be full soon.

He didn't care, he was having too much fun rolling in the snow.

"You don't yell profanities at rain, though," Zane said, sounding slightly insulted.

"COME ON! THIS STUFF'S EVERYWHERE!"

"Not everywhere," Kai said as Lloyd plopped his face into the snow. "There's a green patch over there, isn't there?"

"No, I think that's Lloyd," Cole said. "See? It's moving."

Lloyd sat up.

The other ninjas were outside, wearing warm jackets and hats. The only one who wasn't in the snow was Jay (no surprise there), who was sitting on the porch wrapped in a cocoon made of blankets and staring angrily at the snow.

He went back inside.

Then he was outside again, looking like he was ready to go exploring the arctic.

When everybody started laughing at him, he shook his thickly gloved hand at them and proclaimed that it was a shame that they couldn't see what finger he was holding up.

* * *

Zane, unlike Jay, _loved_ the snow.

More than Lloyd did.

Probably something to do with his element.

Kai seemed to have mixed feelings about the snow.

He tried to initiate a snowball fight, but the snow melted in his hands, which upset him. Nya laughed at him.

Jay was making a snowman, but his facial expression was more of a person who was being tortured than one who was playing in the snow.

Cole was trying to help Jay with his snowman, but Jay ran inside screaming as if he was in a horror movie, leaving the puzzled Master of Earth to finish the snowman alone.

"My fingers are turning blue," Lloyd announced to the others fifteen minutes later.

Jay was still screaming inside the temple.

"May I suggest putting on a pair of gloves then?" Zane asked. "Pixal informs me that the temperature will be dropping later today and people have lost body parts due to frostbite, which can be identified by turning blue."

Jay's screams filled the silence.

"Okay."

Lloyd got up and went in the direction of the screaming.

* * *

Jay stopped screaming only because he decided that he was going to go on his morning jog.

Snow or not, Jay was going to run.

Lloyd appreciated that.

He could enjoy the peace and quiet that brought.

No screaming, and he could continue playing in the snow.

"Pixal informs me that it would be a good idea to take care of your fingers first before you go out to play in the snow," Zane said behind Lloyd, causing the Green Ninja to jump in shock.

Zane was holding a large mixing bowl full of steaming water and had a towel over his shoulder.

No.

 _No._

"No."

Zane put the bowl of water down and ignored Lloyd's protests. "As soon as we're done fixing your fingers, I will help you find your winter clothing and you can play outside with everyone else."

"Nooo!"

Zane didn't seem to hear Lloyd. He took Lloyd's hands and stuck them in the warm water, which felt like liquid fire burning into his skin.

The Nindroid held Lloyd's hands in the water while simultaneously and miraculously putting the fluffy white towel on his lap.

When the water stopped burning, Zane, without even being asked to do so, removed Lloyd's hands from the water and dried them with the fluffy towel.

"It looks like you need to have your nails trimmed," Zane said, very displeased at the state of Lloyd's hands.

Oh no.

 _Please_ no.

 _Please, not now._

Zane suddenly had a nailclipper in his hand, a file and clear nailpolish.

Lloyd knew better than to struggle.

The Master of Ice didn't get tired like Lloyd did and had indefinite patience.

It would just be over quicker if he just allowed Zane to cut his fingernails, file them down and coat them in a thin layer of invisible.

"While we wait for your fingers to try, I'll get started on your toes," Zane said, grabbing Lloyd's foot and removing the slipper that covered it.

* * *

By the time Zane was finished and the nailpolish had dried, it was snowing again and everybody was inside again, drinking hot chocolate and roasting marshmallows over Kai.

"I'm sorry buddy, maybe you can play in the snow tomorrow," Kai said as Lloyd waved his white marshmallow on a stick over the Fire Ninja's flaming hands.

* * *

The next day, the snow had melted and Lloyd wanted to strangle Zane for keeping him out of it the previous day.

He paid no attention to Zane's heartbroken face when he was told that the snow was gone.

* * *

 **I feel sorry for Zane.  
**

 **First one of his best friends curses out his element, then he doesn't even get to play in the snow with Lloyd.**

 **Next up: Cole. And the things will be getting very real.**


	5. And now, it starts

_**Pythor**_

 _Sometimes,_ Pythor thought to himself, _a very smart man can be very stupid._

The time machine was finished.

Soon, Pythor would be able to go back in time and ensure the victory of the Overlord.

There were so many ways he could fix everything.

 _And nobody's going to stop us this time._

* * *

 _ **Lloyd**_  
"You'd think that after eight years of being broken into and stolen from, Borg would at least update the security in this place," Cole said as the six of them ran into the building.

Red lights flashing.

Red and blue.

Red and blue.

Sirens.

 _ **AAHEEEEOOOO**_

"Pixal says that the object they're stealing is in conference room B19," Zane said, speaking as he ran.

"Mr Borg says he has a time machine in the lower levels, so I have a feeling that they might be trying to distract us from it," Cole said, although his instincts would be wrong sometimes. "Zane, Nya, Lloyd, you guys go to the conference room to stop the thieves. I'll take Kai and Jay down to the time machine and make sure they don't go for it!"

 _Excuse me, aren't_ I _supposed to be the leader?_

Lloyd still followed Cole's orders, though.

* * *

It turned out that there was nothing in B19 being stolen.

Just a silvery little moth that came in.

Aaaaand rested in Lloyd's hair.

He couldn't _believe_ Cole.

He went to see the time machine with Kai and Jay, and he was stuck in a boring office with Nya and Zane, who were still looking around for something else that might have caused the alarm to go off.

"A tiny moth like that wouldn't cause the alarm to go off like that," Nya told Lloyd. She stuck her head in the cabinet. "There's got to be someone in here with us."

The room flashed black, red, then back to normal.

Neither Nya not Zane seemed to notice.

"There's nobody here!"

Nya and Zane locked their eyes together, then they ran, with Lloyd on their heels, down to the lower levels.

"Pixal says that the time machine is active!" Zane gasped.

Nya kicked the door down for where the others were.

The room turned red and black again.

Cole was on the floor, being cradled by Jay, who was holding his shirt to Cole's shoulder.

Kai was staring helplessly at some kind of platform.

"He got the time machine," Kai said, sounding dazed. "He went back in time…"

"Who?" Nya asked, running over to help her shocked brother down. "Who stole the time machine?"

Lloyd blinked.

His friends were no longer in the room with him. Behind him, he heard a soft gasp.

"Lloyd?"

He turned around.

Behind him, there was a tall figure wearing a dark hood.

Then the person removed his hood.

* * *

 _ **Garmadon**_

It couldn't be.

His son.

His baby boy, standing right in front of him, perfectly fine. Perfectly safe.

With a moth on his head, but that didn't matter.

The former Dark Lord was holding his son in his arms and crying at the same time, while Lloyd wasted no time in returning the gesture.

 _I can't believe it! He's alive!_

"Dad!"

What was _supposed_ to be a simple stealth mission to sneak into the headquarters of the Overlord and find out what the giant ball of smoke had done with the ninjas and samurai had turned into a tearful reunion between a father and the son he had thought he lost so many years ago.

* * *

 **This is a short chapter, I know.  
**

 **Lloyd's mad at Cole for giving the orders because Lloyd's supposed to be the leader now. Cole getting hurt has nothing to do with Lloyd being mad.**

 **Also, guess who stole the machine? (hint-hint: his name is Pythor)**


	6. Rebel Dad from Mars

_**Garmadon**_

For a moment, Garmadon could see the hypothetical future.

The one after the Overlord was taken care of and peace had returned to Ninjago.

His family could be reunited again.

He could be a father to his son again and tell embarrassing stories about him back when he was a baby as the Walkers did and he could play catch with his son and…

 _We don't have time for this,_ Garmadon realised sadly. _I have to find out where my brothers' students are so we can end this._

He grabbed his son by the arm and pulled him with him to the computer to hack into the mainframe and put the locations of Wu's students on the flash drive the rebel leader gave him for this specific situation.

He wasn't going to lose his son again.

* * *

 _ **Lloyd**_

After embracing him for a NOT long enough time, Lloyd's dad forcibly grabbed him by the arm and dragged him to the computer on the other end of the room, which hadn't been there before.

Lloyd's father, on the other hand, was busy typing away into the computer, looking at him every now and then as if he was expecting him to disappear soon, and stuck a flash drive into the computer.

 _When did my dad learn how to hack into computers?_

For a single second, Lloyd was back with his friends.

Jay was panicking over Cole's unconscious body, telling Nya that he got shot.

The next second Lloyd was back with his father, who had him by the arm and was pulling him through the dark halls as they were being chased by Nindroids, his father holding on to the flash drive with the hand that wasn't holding on to Lloyd with a steel grip.

His father had his dark hood back on.

The silvery moth that had been sitting in his hair the whole time had decided that it was going to fly away, out the window and into the world.

* * *

 _ **Garmadon**_

As much as he wanted to catch up with the son he had thought was dead for all these years, Garmadon had more urgent matters.

Like escaping.

But if anyone thought that he was going to do so without Lloyd, they didn't know him.

There was no way, in Ninjago or any other realm, that he was going to leave his son behind in the headquarters of the Overlord.

The last time he left Lloyd behind, he received the news that his son was dead only moments later from one of the other ninjas. After that, everything went wrong and nothing went right and before he knew it, the Overlord controlled Ninjago.

* * *

 _ **Lloyd**_

Everything was wrong.

Lloyd realised that as soon as his father dragged him outside.

The sky was dark, there were very few cars in the streets and a group of people scattered the moment his father ran in their general direction, still refusing to let go of him.

 _Is my dad still evil here?_

* * *

 _ **Garmadon**_

He had to steal a bike.

Kind of.

What do you call it when you tear two people off their bike, steal their helmets and take the bike?

He mugged a couple for their bike. Robbed them for their helmets. Ignored the mortified look on his son's face as he stuck the sparkly pink helmet on Lloyd and stuck the orange one on his own head.

Lloyd seemed too surprised to react.

He didn't ask any questions, which was good, as Garmadon, as much as he had questions of his own, didn't have the time to answer anything.

The Nindroids were coming.

* * *

 _ **Lloyd**_

And now they were being hunted down by Nindroids on a stolen bike.

"Don't worry, son," his dad said as the bike went at a speed Lloyd didn't even know existed. "I'll explain as soon as we get to the safe point. And you better have some answers for your old man too."

They hit a speed bump.

Lloyd would've fallen off, if only his father wasn't driving the bike with one hand and holding him with an inescapable grip with the other, surely not the safest way to drive a bike.

But, for Lloyd, that was the least of his problems.

The Nindroids had taken to shooting at him and his father, and the (hopefully) former Dark Lord was dodging them and driving like he was on several illegal drugs paired with very strong alcohol. The kind that Ronin drinks sometimes and the kind that Lloyd once found halfway empty in the garbage back at the temple that nobody says they brought.

* * *

 _ **Garmadon**_

Garmadon held on to Lloyd tighter than ever before.

With his other hand, he reached into the pocket of his dark cloak and threw the explosive device inside at the Nindroids behind them as Lloyd franticly grabbed on to the handlebars.

The Nindroids exploded, and they were no longer able to follow them.

They were home free.

* * *

 _ **Overlord**_

 _" **How is it, Pythor, that seven years ago, I killed that pesky Green Ninja with my own bare hands,"** _the Overlord asked with his own, beautifully evil voice instead of that of his human host, _**"but I also just witnessed the boy, unharmed, leave the tower with**_ **Sensei** **Garmadon** **?"**

 _You didn't use your own bare hands, you used MINE!_ the mental voice of the Overlord's host for the past seven years argued as Pythor slithered into his throne room. _I HOPE LLOYD KILLS YOU!_

The Overlord didn't bother to point out that if the Green Ninja killed him, his host would most likely die as well, since they were in the same body.

After all, his host knew, just as well as he did, that the original inhabitant of his human body was starting to lose the fight to control their body. Soon, they would be no more.

"Well, Pythor?" The Overlord asked again, this time speaking in the voice of the poor ninja he used to kill the Green Ninja instead of his own. "We don't have all day."

* * *

 **Bold and italics is the Overlord speaking in his own voice. I like to imagine that he uses his host's voice to freak out Pythor and some of his other generals. I have already decided who the Overlord's host is, but I'd like to see who you think it is in the reviews.  
**

 **Poor Whoever the Overlord is possessing.**

 **Poor Lloyd, stuck on a bike with his father, driving like a lunatic.**


	7. Three Dads and a Mom

_**Garmadon**_

Everybody at the base was either giving him and his son a surprised look, or a disapproving look.

And then there were those who somehow managed to give both.

Not that he was going to let them get to him. After all, there weren't all that many rebels.

He could count about forty, including himself, twenty kids no older than fourteen and no younger than ten, and the Rebel Leader. There was also Lou (Cole's father) and the Walkers, who worked together at the DAHD (Disguise And Hacking Department), where the Walkers hacked into the severely edited news to find out what _really_ happened and Lou would, along with the other Royal Blacksmiths, disguise some of the more well-known rebels (mostly themselves and the Walkers) so they could walk around Ninjago City without getting captured by Nindroids or Chips (People who had a microchip put in the base of their skull so they willingly work for the Overlord).

Not all that many people were willing to stand up to the Overlord.

Garmadon understood.

The Overlord was not above playing dirty. (Chips, Cyborgs…)

"Where's the Leader?" Garmadon demanded from the rather skittish thirteen-year-old girl who checked him and Lloyd for microchips.

"He went out on a solo mission to get supplies and didn't say when he would come back!" the little girl squeaked before running off.

 _Translation: The Leader went to get groceries from the nearby village._

* * *

 _ **Lloyd**_

When his dad drove the stolen bike into the mountain, Lloyd could honestly say that he thought that he was a) going to die and b) going to die in a flaming explosion.

Then it was revealed that a small part of the mountain was a hologram that hid the entrance to a large cave filled with several people giving him and his father odd looks and a little girl who squealed something about supplies when his father growled something about a leader to her before running away.

What.

"What's going on?" Lloyd tried to explore, but his father grabbed him by the arm and dragged him to a door marked _DAHD_ before he could move more than two feet away from him.

Garmadon knocked loudly on the door, which was opened by the tiny little bewildered-looking woman he recognised as Edna, but her hair was all messed up, with her hair sticking out of the bun, and she was wearing a white T-shirt and a pair of jeans instead of the clothes Lloyd usually saw her wearing when she and her husband came by to visit Jay.

She gave Lloyd one look, and the Green Ninja instantly wondered if Jay was really adopted.

"Omygosh! Lloyd, Lloyd! EEEEAAAHHHHDDD! Look! Look, it's Lloyd!" Ed stumbled out of the room, wearing an outfit similar to his wife.

Then Cole's dad appeared from the room, helping the Walkers fawn over Lloyd.

What.

* * *

 _ **Garmadon**_

The look on Lloyd's face said everything.

It was a good thing that the rest of the Royal Blacksmiths weren't around at the moment, because his son looked ready to die of suffocation by parent already.

 _He could be a Chip, though. Emily-Jane_ did _seem very stressed._

Lloyd made an indignant sound when Garmadon lifted up the blond hair at the base of his skull to look for the tell-tale black spot that would tell him if he's been chipped.

 _Nothing_. Not even a scar from Chip-Removal, like the Walkers had.

Edna was crying now.

Ed and Lou were trying to calm her down, but they had taken to tears as well.

"I don't think crying all over the place is very good for the kids," Garmadon told the other three parents, gesturing towards Little Annie, one of the youngest rebels, who looked like she was about to cry very soon herself.

Then Lou, just like Garmadon did only seconds ago, checked to see if Lloyd was a Chip.

He let out a sigh of relief.

* * *

 _ **Lloyd**_

Lloyd was pretty sure that he was going to suffocate by the time his father finished talking to Jay's parents and Cole's father, all of whom were fussing over him, crying and hugging him, which was weird not only because he didn't know them all that well, but because their sons weren't there as they usually were when Lloyd met up with them.

This time, however, Jay and Cole were nowhere near and it was a special kind of awkward.

"The Leader's going to be so happy!" Edna exclaimed when she grabbed Lloyd by the face and checked the back of his head like his father and Cole's dad did. "OHMYGODHE'SNOTACHIP!"

 _Is it bad that I understood that? Does that mean I've been hanging around Jay too much?_

The tiny mother of Jay had a surprisingly strong grip that showed absolutely no sign of wanting to let him go.

She was petting his head like a cat or a dog or that skunk Lloyd remembered sitting on the lap of one of the ninjas one day while the ninja had the appropriate expression for someone who was petting a skunk.

"I thought he was dead," Ed whispered. "The Leader said so."

* * *

 _ **Garmadon**_

"I know what the Leader said," Garmadon told the little grey-haired man in front of him. "I was there. But maybe there was a mistake? Maybe it was someone else who _looked_ like Lloyd. Maybe…"

Edna put her hands on Garmadon's arm. "Garmadon, we're all very happy for you, but…"

The woman looked at Lloyd, who was being grabbed by Ed and Lou to get himself dressed a little less brightly in the DAHD-office, then back at Garmadon. "If Lloyd's been alive all this time, then where was he all this time?"

* * *

 _ **Lloyd**_

He was ambushed by a pair of dads who dragged him into the DAHD-room, where a large pile of clothes sat in the one corner, neatly ironed and folded, and a pile of colourful clothing in the other corner, not folded, not ironed and not at all neat.

There was a dresser against the wall, but Lloyd didn't know what was in it.

Before he could even get close to protesting, Lou forcibly removed Lloyd's green gi and Ed found a grey T-shirt that he put on Lloyd, followed by a pair of blue jeans that fit him just perfectly.

All Lloyd did was take his phone out of his pocket and blink, and then he was pushed out of the room.

"Fifteen seconds," Edna said, looking at her watch. "Be quicker next time, okay, boys?"

Lloyd wasn't sure if she was joking.

Nobody laughed.

* * *

 _ **Garmadon**_

Now all that was left was to wait for the Leader to come back with the supplies.

"Dad, what's going on?" Lloyd asked, looking at Garmadon with those puppy-dog eyes that he missed so much.

"We're not exactly sure, we'll try to figure out once the Leader gets here," Garmadon told his confused son.

Nobody liked having to explain everything twice, after all, and if there was going to be a meeting about _one_ ninja, the meeting might as well be about _all_ the ninjas.

* * *

 _ **Leader**_

The Rebel Leader was greeted by twenty children, all of whom were trying to talk at the same time.

"You'll never believe what happened today!" Emily-Jane gasped as she grabbed him by the arm.

"My toof fell out!" Little Annie squealed, shoving said tooth into the Leader's face.

"Wow, that's fantastic!" the Rebel Leader told the little girl. "Go put it under your pillow so the Tooth Fairy can get it tonight."

The baby ran off to do as she was told.

"Lord Garmadon came back early today!" Emily-Jane blurted out.

"Did he get the information?" the Leader asked. Garmadon rarely came back early unless it was something big, and he hoped that it was good news.

"It's _Lord Garmadon_ , sir. The Nindroids would have to cut off both his arms and Chip him twice before he would even _consider_ not finishing _that_ mission."

"Then why's he back so early?"

"He brought his son. The one we all thought was dead? That one. No Chip, no scar, no proof that he was ever killed. He says he wants to call a meeting with you as soon as you have the time."

The Rebel Leader didn't listen to what else the young girl was saying.

He was too busy running through the base at top speed, hurrying to find Garmadon and Lloyd.

 _Lloyd's alive. That little boy's alive, he's okay…_

* * *

 **Chip: Person who's had a microchip inserted into their neck so the Overlord can control them like he does to the Nindroids. Often used as a spy.  
**

 **EEEEAAAHHHHDDD: Ed Walker, called so by his wife because she was too excited to be quiet.  
**

 **Many children: Family members were turned into Chips, or Cyborgs, or killed.**

 **Rebel Leader: Already decided, but guess who in the review section if you want.  
**

 **Thank you for your reviews on the previous chapter, I'm very proud of that one. Hope this one is up to standard.**


	8. SCREAM!

_**Lloyd**_

Lloyd was just minding his own business, standing next to his father, when he was tackled from behind by none other than Dareth.

"You're alive! The Green Ninja lives! We're going to win this thing!" Dareth cheered. "We're going to get the other ninjas back and BAM! No more Overlord!"

"Leader, we have to have a meeting," Lloyd's father told Dareth very sternly. "I have the flash drive, all we need to do now is discuss what to do."

Hearing his father identify Dareth as "leader" was strange.

Getting hug-tackled by Dareth was strange.

Seeing the Brown Ninja get up off the floor, nod solemnly at the former dark lord and loudly call for a meeting in two hours as if _he_ was in charge, however, was just plain _wrong_.

* * *

 _ **Dareth**_

Garmadon gave Dareth the flash drive before helping Lloyd up and (after a nod from Dareth) went to show the boy to the sleeping quarters while everybody got ready for the meeting.

For Dareth, it was to see what Garmadon got from that computer in Overlord Tower (formerly Borg Tower) on his computer and see what needed to be discussed.

When he opened the newly downloaded file, however, what he saw chilled him to the bones, and he saw what happened to those who defy the Overlord a little bit too openly.

 _That can't be right. No way that's right._

There was excessive torture and then there was _excessive torture_.

"Those poor guys."

* * *

 _ **Garmadon**_

He showed Lloyd through the base.

He showed Lloyd the medical room, where the sick and injured were taken care of by Dan, who had two years of medical school behind him when the Overlord took over.

He showed Lloyd where the kids were taught how to read and write by whatever adult had the time to teach.

And to finish the tour, he showed his son the Meeting Room, where the Leader was busy setting things up for the meeting.

"Aha! Lloyd!" Dareth greeted with a worried smile. "And Garmadon! Great job on that hacking, really great. Sit down, sit, we're just about to get started."

* * *

 _ **Garmadon**_

The meeting started out same as any other meeting.

Dareth turned the computer on, had one of the older kids hand out the monthly duties for the kids and started up the computer/table hybrid Ed and Edna made as to see whatever videos and articles were going to be discussed.

Then the leader did something that he would only do in the most extreme cases.

"Bedtime for the kids!" Dareth said, clasping his hands together. Lloyd made as if to leave the table, but Dareth held up his hand. "The Green Ninja stays, everybody younger goes to bed."

Young voices protested as they were ushered out by the adults.

Every single face was turned to Dareth as soon as they were out.

"Well, let's get this meeting started," the leader said, sticking the flash drive into the port.

* * *

 _ **Dareth**_

"As we all know, the Overlord had eight public torture facilities build over Ninjago," Dareth told the rebels, "twelve Chipping facilities and of course, the two facilities for turning people into cyborgs."

Everybody nodded in agreement, except for Lloyd, who looked mortified.

"But, what Garmadon found was, while very helpful, not _exact_ information." Everybody looked at the former Dark Lord. Dareth snapped his fingers, pulling their attention back to himself. "He _did_ bring information about the ninjas, but it seems that the Overlord planned ahead for something like this. And what's more is that, despite there only being twenty-two facilities that we know of, there are _seventeen_ more facilities listed under "private". I believe that the Overlord sends his _special attention_ prisoners to those facilities."

* * *

 _ **Garmadon**_

"These Private Torture facilities are where the Overlord personally experiments with new ways of torture, both physical and mental, on the prisoners," Dareth said, visibly shuddering as he spoke.

Garmadon gently put his hand on Lloyd's shoulder and smiled at his son when he looked at him. "It's okay, Lloyd."

Dareth seemed to notice Lloyd's odd behaviour, because he snapped his fingers and had Garmadon escort him out.

 _Something's not right with Lloyd,_ Garmadon realised.

"Everything's wrong," Lloyd said suddenly. "It's like that episode of Samurai Hero, when the samurai goes back in time and when he comes back, everything is all creepy and dark and the goofy guy's a spy and all his friends are evil and the bad guy took over the world!"

Garmadon didn't know how to react to that.

Lloyd grabbed him in a hug and cried. "I don't want all my friends to be evil!"

* * *

 _ **Zane**_

Whenever his brother got agitated, he would scream and hit the glass until he turned blue and passed out.

And when the Nindroids were going to be gone for the first weekend of the month every month from Friday morning to Monday morning due to orders from the Overlord, the other ninja would be angrier than any other time of the month.

Zane didn't know _how_ he noticed it, though.

He was _always_ agitated.

"So what are your plans for the weekend?" Zane asked as he leaned with his back against his brother's glass prison.

"AAAARGH!" his brother answered.

 _ **Bang. Bang. Bang.**_

"That sounds interesting," Zane replied. "I will be with Pixal."

"AAAARGH!"

 _ **Bang. Bang. Bang.**_

"I have told you about Pixal, right?" Zane questioned, pretending that his brother asked him who Pixal was, despite him having met her before. "She was the one who broke me out of my prison and tricked all of the guards and the Overlord into thinking that I'm still there before repairing me and disguising me to look like one of the Nindroid army."

"AAAARGH!"

 _ **Bang. Bang. Bang.**_

Zane shook his head as he stood up. "I'm sorry, but I do not know where the others are."

"AAAARGH!"

 _ **Bang. Bang. Bang.**_

"Yes, I will have a nice weekend, thank you. I hope you enjoy yours as well."

Of course, his brother didn't really say anything other than "aaargh".

But Zane hoped that if he pretended that the two of them were having a normal conversation, he might actually hear _words_ coming from his brother's mouth instead of tortured screams.

That surely would be nice…

* * *

 **Power's been out all day over here because they were working on it and wifi's only just got back on.  
**

 **Poor Zane and poor glass ninja.**

 **Also, poor Lloyd, all confused about all.**

 **I did hint at Dareth being the Rebel Leader with all those kids running around the place. People seem to forget the guy taught martial arts to kids and he seems very protective over the things. He does not get the love he deserves from the fandom :(.**

 **He started the rebellion after many parents didn't come to retrieve their children from his dojo because of various reasons. He escaped with the kids using only a school bus, a frying pan and his skills in seeming dumb.**

 **If you want, you can try to guess the glass ninja.**


	9. Hello, it's me

_**Lloyd**_

Lloyd still had his phone, which surprised his dad, because apparently there were no BorgPhones in this crazy, twisted version of Ninjago.

Or any other kind of phone.

"The Overlord enslaved Borg," his dad explained as he was handed the phone. "It's pretty hard to make new technologies if you're being mind-controlled."

Lloyd agreed and showed him how to access the photos.

"This was Cole after I pranked him by putting makeup on him while he slept," Lloyd told his father when the first photo showed up.

"What a strange scar," Garmadon mused.

Lloyd shrugged. "Yeah, he got that after he turned human again."

* * *

 _ **Garmadon**_

Garmadon was content, sitting there on his bed, with his son tucked under his arm, showing him photos from an alternative timeline where the Overlord was defeated after only a couple of months of being back in Ninjago.

Zane was made of silver in that timeline.

"No, Dad. Titanium."

Cole turned into a ghost and back.

"He still walks into stuff all the time."

Kai was dating Lord Chen's daughter.

"She's very cool."

Nya became a ninja.

"It was at about the same time when Cole turned into a ghost. She has water powers."

And Jay had a weird thing about wishes, apparently.

"Nya made all of us _walk_ home that night because of it."

Garmadon chuckled. "How did you get home if home was on a floating island?"

"A very long ladder," Lloyd answered as the photos came to an end.

* * *

 _ **Lloyd**_

He felt like a little boy again, which was okay, because his dad was there and it's okay to feel like a kid when his dad's there and patiently listening to him ramble on about being from an alternative timeline and showing him photos of Cole in makeup, Jay wearing a tortured expression as he was playing in the snow, Kai posing with Lloyd stuck in the tube thing at Ninja-Ninja's, Zane doing Lloyd's nails and Nya posing with a Star-Winged Goldmoth.

When he yawned, his father laughed and told him that it was time for bed.

Lloyd wasn't exactly sure if he _wanted_ to go to bed, in fear that it might all be a dream, but his father assured him that it wasn't and put him in the bed they were sitting on the entire time they were watching the photos on his phone.

He was tucked in, just like when he was a kid, and the lights were turned off.

He really hoped that he wasn't dreaming.

* * *

 _ **General X**_

The general watched the figure pace the glass tube like a caged animal.

An angry, injured, very dangerous caged animal.

The Overlord, standing right next to the general, had taken on the appearance of his host and had changed into the colour gi that the ninja whose body he was using would wear instead of his usual dark armour.

 _Sick,_ the general thought to herself as she watched the Overlord walk on over to the imprisoned ninja.

The microchip in the base of her skull was of a special design that would cause her to be aware of everything that was going on, unlike the other people who were chipped, who cheerily served the Overlord without a single complaint, only knowing that he was their master and they were his servants.

Her theory for the special chip was so she could see everything that was going on in Ninjago, see how she served him and watch as his host slowly faded away.

But this was by far the worst thing the Overlord had made her watch.

"Hey, buddy," the Overlord told the encaged ninja with the gentle voice his host used to use. "I'm back. And look who I brought with me."

General X stepped closer, still wearing the very same black armour she always wore.

The ninja stopped pacing and turned his eyes to her, wide in surprise, as if she didn't some along with the Overlord every single time he came to torture the ninja with his presence. And more.

She opened the door for the imprisoned ninja.

He backed away.

He knew what was coming.

They went through this every month.

General X's microchip forced her to grab the ninja by the arm and pull him out.

His reactions to _that_ varied.

Sometimes he screamed and tried to get away, sometimes he would speak gibberish and have to be _dragged_ to the torture chambers and sometimes he would be quiet and calmly walk with her.

This was one of those times when he was feeling particularly violent and attacked.

He grabbed her hand and bit it until there was blood and the Overlord tried to pull him off her by his feet.

Idiot got kicked in the face. Twice.

It wasn't even _his_ face.

The Overlord still reacted badly, though.

With a swift movement, he threw the ninja back into his prison and shut the door.

" _ **If you're going to be difficult, then FINE! BE DIFFICULT!"**_ The prisoner was now lying on the floor of his prison in a fetal position, with his eyes tightly shut. _**"General, set up the "special room" and take him there as soon as he recovers. I'll deal with him personally."**_

The general looked up from her injured hand and stared at the prisoner.

 _So same as always._

The Overlord turned around and left the room.

The imprisoned ninja winced when the door slammed shut.

General X turned to head to the torture chambers.

 _ **Knock-knock.**_

When she turned around, the imprisoned ninja was staring at her with sad, hollow eyes.

"Why?"

The first word spoken by the prisoner in seven years, and it _had_ to be that one.

The microchip in her skull prevented her from doing anything other than shooting him an apologetic look and leaving to get the Overlord's personal torture chambers ready.

 _I'm so sorry._

* * *

 **While Lloyd sleeps, the Overlord likes to break his toys.**

 **Poor** **glass ninja. Never going to be the same again if he even gets out.**

 **General X's identity is a hint to who the Overlord is posessing and to the identity of the Glass Ninja. Try and guess in the reviewsif you want.  
**

 **Fun fact: I wrote the last part with a baby Yorkshire Terrier napping on me.**


	10. Imprisoned

_**Edna**_

Edna scratched the scar left behind from when the Chip was removed from her skull and chased after Lloyd.

"Lloyd! Come back here!" She hurried after the young Green Ninja. "Dareth says that we have to stick together!"

They were on a mission.

Ever the teacher, Dareth made everybody stay in their assigned groups, and she was given Garmadon and Lloyd to deal with because Ed had to stay back due to a sprained ankle.

She didn't have any magic powers or enhanced senses like Lloyd and his father, neither of whom were all too keen on slowing down for her.

When she finally caught up, she grabbed Garmadon by the ear and forced him to sit down.

"Son, I think Mrs Walker wants to talk to us," Garmadon told Lloyd, still being held down by Edna.

The Green Ninja sat down.

Edna let go of her prisoner and put her hands on her hips.

"What do you two think you're doing?!" Edna scolded. "Are you two _trying_ to get rid of me? Because that's what this looks like."

Both father and son looked guilty.

Good.

"You have to remember, I'm not a demigod, I don't have magic powers, I can't do Spinjitsu and my legs are short, so slow down, okay?"

The Garmadons nodded.

"Good."

* * *

 _ **Lloyd**_

They were on a mission to find Zane and break him out of his specially designed prison as it was the closest one to the secret base and Zane would likely be the calmest one after seven years of imprisonment and the Overlord's personal attention.

He was in a hurry, hoping to get to his friend before it was too late, when Jay's mom stopped him and his dad and told them to slow down a little for her short legs.

But, despite _hours_ of running and driving all over the place, they finally found the prison.

It was built in an active volcano, according to the information Lloyd's dad found at Overlord Tower.

"Okay, then," Edna said once she saw how the place was surrounded by robotic guards. She brought out her laptop from her backpack and started typing away right there in the bushes. "I'm going to try and hack into one of the Nindroids while the two of you sneak in. I'll give you the signal once I got one."

Lloyd had some questions, but his father nodded and put up the black hood and the violet mask he wore just yesterday. Lloyd and Edna each had their own, and the two of them put theirs on.

Lloyd's mask was green and Edna's was an electric blue.

And they were off.

* * *

 _ **Zane**_

When Zane returned to his and Pixal's secret hideout, Pixal was busy tinkering with a Nindroid she must have captured during the month he was away.

It was just something she would do to pass the time.

When he cleared his throat, she turned around and looked like she was about to attack before he remembered that his eyes were still set on red instead of blue to show that he was Zane and not a random Nindroid who just happened upon the place.

"Zane! I almost attacked you and used you for scrap!" Pixal scolded.

"My apologies," Zane told her, "my mind was wandering."

Pixal rolled her green eyes as she continued working on the captured Nindroid. "So, what happened?"

Zane shook his head sadly. "Same as usual. He screams at every single thing that happens and gets more agitated before the other Nindroids and I leave. He has shown no hint of recognising me at all this time."

Pixal turned around to look at Zane's heartbroken expression. "What did he think of that pudding cup I sent for him?"

Zane sighed. "He got mad and tried to throw it at me. I don't think he remembers how to throw, though, because he didn't let it go and was making the throwing motion all day with it in his hand until I had to take it from him."

The android looked away, sad. "Oh."

Sometimes, when she had some free time from capturing Nindroids and tinkering with them, she would look for something the imprisoned ninja might find enjoyable and send it to him with Zane.

So far, none of those treats seemed to calm the poor ninja down.

Feather on a string? Reduced to ashes.

A bar of chocolate? May just as well have been part of the floor for all the attention it got. It had to be fished out.

A fluffy blue blanket so he wouldn't have to sleep on the cold floor? His brother attempted to eat it, resulting in it being fished out the moment he realised what was going on.

It was now in the corner of their hideout, sporting several bite-holes and chew-marks.

And that was the direction in which Pixal looked.

* * *

 _ **Garmadon**_

All that work for nothing.

 _We break into one of the most heavily guarded facilities in all of Ninjago to get Zane out, and he's already gone._

Inside Zane's cell, there was a hologram being projected by a hidden device.

"He's out," Garmadon told the Nindroid Edna hacked into and Lloyd once he got to them. "His cell's full of dust, so I doubt he's been here in a very long time."

"If he's out, then why didn't he contact the rebellion?" Lloyd asked.

"Either he has no idea that it exists, or he has other priorities," Edna's Nindroid explained. "Your father had no idea that it existed after _he_ escaped either, and Lou was too busy looking for the other Blacksmiths and Cole to care about it."

Garmadon grabbed his son by the hand and ran. "We can swap stories later, we have to get out of here first!"

* * *

 _ **Overlord**_

He made the prisoner press in the code for the torture chamber designed specifically for said prisoner.

Of all the things the ninja forgot, the code needed to enter the most wonderful room in the whole prison was not one of them.

General X was waiting for them.

"Sir, I just got news from the Nindroids at the White Ninja's prison. He just broke out with the help of some rebels."

 _Good._

The Overlord sneered. **"And you couldn't wait until** _ **after**_ **we were done here?"**

The prisoner didn't seem to hear their conversation. He had already walked on over to his favourite corner in the room and hugged his legs, eyes tightly shut and rocking himself back and forth, softly muttering gibberish words to himself.

" **Tell Cryptor to double the Nindroid production, double the guards at each prison and to double the surveillance. If the other one does as much as** _ **scratch himself**_ **, I want to know about it, got it?"**

The general nodded and ran off.

The Overlord turned his attention back to the cowering ninja and, with his host's voice and appearance, spoke to him, wearing the same expression his host used to wear when his sister had nightmares or was simply frightened.

"Don't worry, everything's going to be okay. Sensei just asked me to check that your lightning still works, okay?"

The Overlord attatched the devices on the table behind him to the prisoner.

Then he picked up the remote that controlled the devices.

 _No! Don't do it!  
_

And with a press of a button, white lightning surrounded the prisoner, screaming as it attacked him.

* * *

 **So now the rebels just made it harder for themselves just by trying to break Zane out. Poor guys, only wanted to help.  
**

 **Speaking of Zane, I bet Pixal was very upset and confused at the same time when Glass Ninja tried to eat the blanket she found for him. Poor guy's so messed up, poor baby.**


	11. Attack of the 5-foot Edna

_**Dareth**_

Everyone at the meeting was freaking out at the news that one of the ninjas had broken out years and hadn't let anyone know,

Dareth was having trouble calming everybody down from their outrage.

At one point, someone threw a shoe at him, and another person threw their entire laptop (might be one of the Walkers) at him when he tried to tell them to stop throwing stuff at him.

"Come on, guys!" Dareth begged when a well-aimed pair of glasses hit Garmadon in the face. "We're adults, this isn't helping _anyone_!"

"Who has my glasses?!" somebody demanded.

Garmadon didn't speak up.

"Guys, _please_ , stop throwing things!"

Evidently, that was a bad thing to say to a room full of angry rebels, because it caused several things to be thrown at him in anger.

"The Overlord ordered a large production of the Nindroids," Ed told everybody after typing away on his laptop. "He's doubling the guards at his private facilities!"

Lou threw his other shoe at Garmadon.

Garmadon ducked this time, causing the shoe to harmlessly bounce off the wall behind him.

"I missed," Lou told one of the other Royal Blacksmiths, who patted him on the back when the father of the Black Ninja made a sniffling sound.

"EVERYBODY CALM DOWN!" Dareth yelled. Everything was quiet. Everyone was staring at Dareth in shock.

"Edna, come and get your laptop. Lou, stop throwing shoes at everybody. Greg, Garmadon has your glasses and it's your own fault for throwing them." Dareht took a deep breath. "The next person to throw something is out of the meeting and is confined to the base for the next month. Got it?"

Everybody nodded.

"Okay."

* * *

 _ **Garmadon**_

The meeting went well after Dareth managed to calm everyone down and stop them from throwing things, but when it was _over_ , things got real.

Lou announced that it would be better if they found and broke Cole out of his prison first, because he was going to be more help than the other two with his super-strength and his earth powers, and the Walkers just _lost it_.

Edna just flew at the man and attacked him.

Ed, twisted ankle and all, managed to tackle one of the blacksmiths that was trying to remove his wife from Lou.

The other rebels were either cheering them on, or trying to separate them.

Garmadon managed to pick up Ed and put him on the table, but that was a bad idea, because the tiny little grey man jumped down from the table and dove into the blacksmith he was attacking, still on the floor, screaming as he did so.

In the end, it was just better to get Lloyd out of there and hope they didn't kill each other.

* * *

 _ **Cole**_

The microchip inserted into the base of his skull would control his emotions and keep him from falling to the evils of free thought, just like the Overlord intended.

The microchip was good.

He couldn't get angry, sad or frustrated. He was always locked in permanent bliss.

Despite being kept in a giant sphere, hovering thousands of feet above the ground, where he would be safe, Cole was content.

The only thing he had a _slight_ problem with, was the sheer amount of electricity that was being used to power his home, because he read, in the newspaper that the cyborg guard brought for him that morning, that there was a slight shortage in the power department.

Yet, when he expressed concern about that, the cyborg simply told him not to worry about that. He was told that his home used a special power source that didn't run out very easily.

That didn't stop him from worrying, despite the cyborg saying it as kindly as possible.

 _Maybe my microchip's glitching,_ Cole thought to himself. _Others have their microchips updated every six months, mine hasn't been updated in six years._

Something kept Cole from voicing his concerns about his microchip, though.

He was too busy worrying about all the hovercrafts that were powered by electricity, which were used by the Nindroids and the cyborg to bring him food and water every day.

Long story short: They were being used _a lot_.

And ever since yesterday, his guards had been watching him more intensely than ever before.

Whenever he did as much as scratch himself, the cyborg would put it in the report.

There was a lot of that, though, because he had been bugged by mosquitos the previous night and they bit him all over and it was itching like crazy.

He was trying not to make too much work for the cyborg, though.

But it itched _soooooo_ bad!

* * *

 _ **Zane**_

Pixal had, for some reason he couldn't quite understand, taken to putting the severed body parts of the Nindroids she captured on sharpened poles and sticking them all over the place, so when he left on Monday morning, he left behind a cave protected by a bunch of severed Nindroid heads, arms, legs and even a couple of torsos.

But that was mostly just the parts that Pixal had deemed worthless to tinker with.

Too badly damaged or something.

She had given Zane a wad of cotton candy to give to his brother, because he mentioned that it was a favourite of his once and she hoped that it might get him to do something other than scream himself blue.

But, of course, when Zane put it in through the slot his food was put in once he had the chance (which he almost didn't due to the amount guards doubling and running all over the place), it was ignored.

"Come on, it is your favourite," Zane told him. "You said so yourself, it makes you feel like a kid again."

In response to that, his imprisoned brother stomped on the wad of cotton candy as if it was a spider or a roach that he wanted dead.

He was glaring at Zane the entire time.

At least there was no screaming or banging against the glass this time.

"Do you remember me?" Zane asked, sounding hopeful.

He asked that question every time he returned, and the answer to that had always been screaming and banging against the glass wall.

This time was different.

"No."

Zane's heart did backflips in his chest. "What did you say?"

"No."

* * *

 **Poor Zane's just happy his buddy's talking.  
**

 **Lou made a terrible mistake, implying that Cole's more useful than Jay in front of Ed and Edna _._ Why would you do that, buddy?**


	12. Prison Break

_**Overlord**_

General X was being a smartass.

And the little voice of his host, although very weak and fading away, was laughing because of it.

Her microchip was a special one, one that allowed her to think freely, but not too much, and allow her to be aware of everything that was going on around her.

Her original personality would resurface a lot, and while she'd never _openly_ defy him, she would do something passive-aggressive like this.

" _ **GENERAL! WHAT'S THE MEANING OF THIS?!"**_ he demanded of the girl when one of the Nindroids read what the guards for the Black Ninja recorded.

"My lord, you _did_ say that you wanted to know if he did as much as scratch himself. I used your exact words when I was repeating your orders."

" _ **I did not ask for the Black Ninja's scratching schedule, General!"**_ His host was still laughing.

He shot white-hot flames at the general, but paired with her ducking and his host suddenly regaining enough control to move his arm so the ceiling of his throne room melted instead, he did not get her.

The flames died.

The general was kneeling on the floor, white as a sheet and gasping for air.

Her face was soaked, but he didn't care whether it was tears or sweat.

" _ **Fix it, Nya, or else."**_

* * *

 _ **General X**_

The general set up the communications between herself and the facility that contained the Black Ninja.

"The Overlord has commanded that none inform him when the prisoner scratches himself," the general told the cyborg in charge of guarding said ninja. "Anyone who informs him of such is to be executed."

The cyborg nodded. "None will inform the Overlord when he scratches himself."

"Ever."

The cyborg nodded. "Ever."

The holographic projection of the cyborg seemed a little worried.

"He does seem to favour the base of his skull, though, which is where his microchip is located. There is a possibility of him possibly damaging it and tearing it out."

General X glared at him in a way that would make anyone back off. "The Overlord does not want to know when he scratches himself, no matter what. If he scratches the microchip out, it's still a very long way down. He'd be an idiot if he were to try and escape."

 _Please be an idiot. Please escape. Please go get him out._

The cyborg nodded and shut down the communications.

* * *

 _ **Cole**_

The microchip had been bothering him all day.

Maybe because it was out of date, maybe because it was breaking, or maybe because it was itching, but either way, it was bothering him.

He couldn't stop scratching it.

 _ **Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.**_

Another thing that struck him as strange was the fact that only 24 hours ago, the Nindroids were obsessed with the scratching, but now, they ignored it.

Didn't they know that he might accidently remove his microchip if he kept on scratching?

 _ **Crack.**_

The microchip was broken.

The microchip was broken, and now Cole wanted to get out.

Sure, it was a long way down to the ground, but it didn't matter, because he was going to get down if it killed him.

He was going to get down, and once he was back on the solid ground, he was going to find his friends and break them out.

 _First, I'm going to break Zane out. Then we can work together to find and break Jay out and then we can find Kai and Nya…_

* * *

 _ **Dareth**_

Lou had fifteen stitches, a broken nose and a black eye, which made Garmadon wonder out loud if Edna Walker was extremely tough, or if Lou was just extremely fragile.

Lou claimed it was the former, Edna claimed it was the latter and Ed agreed with his wife.

Dareth had to ground them.

Meaning they were not going to be allowed to take part in the rescue missions for Cole and Jay.

"We're going after Jay first, then we're going after Cole. We're going to need something that can fly to get to him, Lou, so keep your shoes on." Lou put his shoe back on. "Before we can do anything, though, we're going to need disguises to get past the guards and find out where they're keeping him. We're breaking him out first chance we have."

The rebels nodded in agreement.

* * *

 _ **Zane**_

It took all day for Zane to get his brother to speak again. In fact, ane was starting to worry that it might not even happen again.

"Come on, you spoke just this morning," Zane begged.

"AAAARGH!"

 _ **Bang. Bang. Bang.**_

"Please stop that, you're hurting yourself!"

"AAAARGH!"

 _ **Bang. Bang. Bang.**_

"Jay! Stop that!"

Silence.

"Jay, I'm going to get you out, okay?" Zane put his hand on the glass separating him and his brother. "I'm going to get you out before this week is over, okay?"

Jay curled up in a fetal position and sobbed.

"No! Liar!"

"Jay, I swear, I swear on my life, I will get you out."

* * *

 **Poor Nya, attacked by her bro, and poor Kai, forced to attack his sis.**

 **Poor parents, not being allowed to go save their kids and being grounded by _Dareth_ of all people. But they were kind of asking for that.**

 **Also, Cole's not happy, so feel worried for his guards if you must.**

 **Well, at least Zane got what he asked for, I guess.**

 **My great aunt got a myna chick that fell out of its nest as a gift today, so if anybody has any advice abut that, we're open to suggestions.**


	13. Of Breaking In to Break Out

_**Pythor**_

When the Overlord killed Lloyd, like the other him suggested, the Dark Lord wanted to capture his ghost to drain him of his golden power.

Unfortunately, the ghost was already long gone and wouldn't come when summoned.

The Overlord was mad.

 _Very_ mad.

Pythor almost died the day the Overlord realised that he had no way of getting his hands on Lloyd's golden power.

His scales still hadn't grown back completely from that attack. And his arm…

Well, that _wouldn't_ grow back.

The Overlord didn't allow for him to get a prosthetic. He had to get by with one arm in a workspace where he needed three.

But when he tried to bring this up to the Overlord, his master calmly told him, in the voice of the pitiful Red Ninja whom he was possessing, that he was lucky that he was still alive to complain.

When the flames came, Pythor left before he could be treated the same way as that Lightning Ninja and tortured until he couldn't even remember his name anymore.

Now, however, Pythor saw the perfect chance to get that prosthetic.

"My lord, if Lloyd's back, then maybe we can extract the golden power from him now," Pythor suggested to his master. "And when you've got the golden power, then maybe you'll finally be able to destroy those rebels."

The Overlord seemed to be thinking it over. "If I have the golden power I'll be able to finally crush those rebels, you claim…"

Pythor nodded with enthusiasm. "Yes, my lord! Just snap your fingers, and they're gone!"

The Overlord changed into the form of the Red Ninja. "Pythor?"

The Overlord was mere millimetres away from Pythor's face. "Yes, my lord?"

"Where _is_ the Green Ninja?"

Pythor would've turned pale if he wasn't already white and a Serpentine. "With the rebels, my lord."

"Do you really believe that I'll forgive your mistakes and let you live if you bring me that ninja, _alive_ , Pythor?" the Overlord asked, sounding sincere.

Unlike with the girl, Pythor doubted that the Red Ninja would be willing to avoid burning him to a crisp. And look, he was correct.

* * *

 _ **Cole**_

The Nindroids still didn't know that his microchip was out, and it's been four days.

All he'd have to do was wait for when the so-called "Medical Nindroid" came by to take him to the "Medical Chambers" and "examined" him.

And by that he meant that the Nindroid would come by once a week and torture him for hours without him even being able to fight back because of the stupid microchip.

This time was different.

Sure, he cheerily greeted the Nindroid guards that came by to take him to the "Medical Room" as useal, but the moment their guard was down, a well-thrown punch knocked their heads off and allowed him to take over the hovercraft that he had no idea how to fly.

 _How do I land?!_

When Cole finally managed to land, it was a rather spectacular crash-landing.

Right in front of a tall, imposing building, surrounded by lightning.

 _If any of my brothers are in here, I'm getting them out before the day is over._

* * *

 _ **Lloyd**_

The Nindroids guarding Jay's prison wore blue gi.

Lloyd was, just like the other rebels on this mission, given a set of the exact same uniform those Nindroids wore, a pair of red contact lenses and black paint that would make him fit in with the Nindroids.

"Don't get caught, okay?" Lloyd's father warned as they walked into the prison. "The Overlord's cruel and nothing would please him more than getting his claws on you."

Lloyd nodded.

The prison was tall, dark and every five seconds, lightning flashed, adding to the creep-factor. Whenever Nya was upset, it would rain. If Zane was upset, the room's tepreture would drop and when Kai was upset, it would rise.

It only made sense that if Jay was upset, there would be an electrical storm.

Judging by the rage of the electrical storm going on, Jay was _very_ upset.

"Now to find Jay," Dareth said, running off in one direction while Lloyd's father went in the other, looking for the room where they kept Jay.

All three of them had special communication-devices that allowed them to speak to each other over long distances without being bugged by the Overlord or his forces, so if any of them found Jay, they would be able to tell the others.

Lloyd wandered around the building aimlessly, looking for anywhere they might be keeping a prisoner, when he was grabbed from behind and had something sharp pressed against his throat.

"Where's the prisoner?" a male voice hissed. "Tell me or you're sleeping in the junkyard tonight."

It didn't sound like his dad or Dareth, and even if he _wanted_ to tell the person who was holding him hostage where Jay was, he didn't know.

As response, Lloyd punched the person in the gut and fled.

* * *

 _ **Zane**_

He was going to get Jay out of the prison before the sun even set.

"The Overlord would not be pleased if his favourite prisoner succumbs to disease because his tube is full of filth," Zane told the Nindroid in charge of the facility. "I am certain that if we clean it out, it could mean a promotion for us."

"And where do we put the prisoner while we clean the tube, ND1705? The only other tube we have is the one in the Master's office, and it takes both the Master himself and his most prized general to get him there, and even then it takes excessive force. The Master won't be pleased when his favourite prisoner has injuries on him inflicted by another."

Suddenly, Zane knew what happened when all of the Nindroids were away during the first weekend of each month.

No wonder Jay was worse around that time.

Zane wasn't one to lose his temper just like that, but the next thing the Nindroid knew, it was lying on the ground, frozen all the way through and its badge stolen by the White Ninja of Ice.

And Zane was on his way to free Jay, whether he liked it or not.

* * *

 **Well, guess who died in a fire.  
**

 **Poor baby Jay's going to be so confused so very soon.**

 **Cole's _not_ in a good mood.**

 **The bird is an Indian Mynah, they're an invasive species here and it's _just_ started growing feathers. They're kind of a pest, because they chase the local birds away, but apparently they can speak very beautifully if raised from a chick. This one is whistling very beautifully and _loves_ being held and fed. He's going to grow up to say some pretty weird stuff :/**


	14. Saving Private Walker

_**Jay**_

First, it was the Nindroid who came by, swore on its life to get him out, and then ran off.

Then there was the thing that was _not_ a Nindroid that swore to get him out before it ran off.

That one brought in two others that weren't Nindroids, struggled with the tube for fifteen minutes and ran off again, again telling him that they were going to get him out.

Jay wasn't exactly sure what was going on anymore. It was a weird day.

Another one, one that was wearing the blue of the Nindroids (he hated that colour) but didn't even paint its face like the other three, came in, slammed the glass as hard as he could, but that only made Jay mad ( _nobody_ slams Jay's glass except for him), and left, telling Jay that he was going to get him out.

 _The nerve of that guy, hitting_ my _glass! Nobody hits_ my _glass!_

When the guy came back, Jay slammed the glass and screamed in hopes of keeping him away from the glass, but that didn't work, because the guy had the nerve to get a running start and hit the glass like _that_.

The guy left.

The trio came back, carefully examining the glass.

"Maybe a bomb?" one of the fake Nindroids suggested.

"I don't think Dan's going to be able to fix that." The fake Nindroids ran off again.

When the Nindroid that promoised to get him out came back, it had a badge that it swiped against the scanner, which asked for the password.

"You don't happen to know the password, do you?" the Nindroid asked.

 _Might as well humour it._

"Generator."

The Nindroid looked furious when the password worked and the door opened. "Come on, let's get out of here."

 _Are you sure?_

Jay took a hesitant step outside the tube and for the first time that he could remember, there was no Overlord or General X to grab him and drag him to the "Special Room".

 _Weird._

A loud noise startled the Nindroid, who grabbed him around the waist and ran. _Weird day._

* * *

 _ **Lloyd**_

When nobody could figure out how to open up the glass tube Jay was in, he, Dareth and his father went to look for something that could open it.

Lloyd suggested a bomb, but his dad laughed and said that Dan, the medical guy, wouldn't like it.

"Maybe I can break the tube open?" Lloyd asked once they were out in the hallways, looking for the badge that Dareth said would be able to unlock said tube.

Dareth shook his head. "No, the file says that he _hates_ that. You saw what he was like, right? Well, we don't want it to get worse."

Lloyd felt guilty even thinking about it now.

After searching several Nindroids for the badge, though, they found none, and returned to where Jay was kept to try and figure out another way to get him out.

As they walked towards the tube, however, they found a Nindroid walking with Jay, leading him somewhere with its arm around his waist.

Lloyd's father hurried on over to the Nindroid with Jay. "You are hereby relieved of your duty and are to hand over custody of the prisoner to me."

The Nindroid stared at Lloyd's dad.

He stared back.

The Nindroid let go of Jay, but didn't hand over Jay to his father. "I have not been informed of this. I will not be handing the prisoner over to you."

Lloyd's dad pushed the Nindroid.

The Nindroid pushed back.

When everybody looked again, Jay was gone.

* * *

 _ **Cole**_

When he returned to the tube after his third head start, the door was open and Jay was out.

 _Please be okay, please be okay…_

Cole ran all over the place, looking for Jay, when he found him curiously watching two Nindroids pushing each other like a pair of third graders alongside two more Nindroids.

They were distracted by the fighting, so Cole had no trouble waltzing in unnoticed and grabbing Jay (who was surprised at being grabbed) and running towards the entrance.

Jay didn't seem all that happy, though.

"No! No! Down! Floor!"

Cole didn't put Jay down, though.

Before he was out through the door, though, Jay stopped screaming and was out of his arms.

When he looked around, he found a Nindroid (maybe one of those that were pushing each other?) holding Jay and running.

Cole ran after them, followed by three other Nindroids.

 _Don't these guys have anything better to do?_

* * *

 _ **Zane**_

What was it with everyone wanting Jay today?

First, those three strange Nindroids tried to take him, but were foiled by another one who grabbed Jay and ran.

Then Zane found him close to the exit, being carried by a rather large Nindroid. He grabbed the Blue Ninja and ran towards the door, chased by the three other Nindroids.

And the big one.

"Don't worry, we're almost out," Zane consoled Jay, who had started to cry.

It must have been overwhelming for him, suddenly being outside of his glass tube for a reason that _wasn't_ being tortured into insanity. He'd cry too.

His robotic heart was beating loudly in his chest.

 _ **Door. Door. Door.**_

And they were out.

* * *

 **Everybody wants to break Jay out, everybody's confused, but none so much as Jay, who knows very little of what's going on.  
**

 **I mean, _why_ do these strange people dress up as Nindroids, tell him that they're going to break him out and then (OMG) try and break him out?**


	15. Runaway Ninja

_**Zane**_

It seems that, along with several other things, Jay also forgot that ice was cold.

Also, when one bites into the ice, it does not feel nice.

And that ice has a habit of melting.

Zane, on the other hand, forgot that they were being followed by four Nindroids, which led to him being tackled from behind by one and Jay being grabbed by another, which ran in the opposite direction of the prison facility, but was stopped by the big one, who grabbed Jay from it and ran away.

 _What's_ with _these guys?_ Zane wondered to himself, punching the Nindroid that had tackled him, and hearing the unmistakable sound of metal against bone.

 _No way. No way._ Zane pulled the mask off the "Nindroid", revealing the face of an old man with grey hair.

"You're not Nindroids!" Zane gasped. "You're with the rebels!"

The man made ready to punch him, but Zane grabbed him by the arm. "No, wait, I'm on your side!"

The man and his group didn't seem to believe him very much, but it wasn't like they had a choice, because Jay was already almost gone.

* * *

 _ **Cole**_

Cole waited until he was well away from the Nindroids who were chasing after him before he put Jay down on the sand.

Jay let out an unearthly scream once he was put down, but Cole removed his mask and sat down in front of his friend.

"Whoa, Jay, it's me," Cole told his friend. "See?"

Jay continued screaming.

"We're away from the Nindroids."

More screaming.

"Jay, if you don't stop, the Nindroids are going to hear you and take you back, is that what you want?!"

Cole didn't mean to raise his voice, or to threaten his best friend (hopefully) with Nindroids, but he did and Jay's screaming got louder.

"I can hear him screaming!" a vaguely familiar voice screamed. "He's this way!"

Cole reached to pick Jay up, but the Blue Ninja just screamed and jumped out of the way.

 _I forgot how damn fast he is!_

The familiar form of the Nindroid who had Jay only moments before appeared on top of the dune, followed by three other familiar figures.

The three others looked to be human, even though their faces were all smudged with black paint.

"Cole?!" a voice cried out, sounding completely surprised.

 _Lloyd?!_

* * *

 _ **Lloyd**_

After Zane expressed his disbelief upon finding out that he was still alive, the four of them ran after Jay's familiar screaming, Dareth trying to convince Zane to join the rebellion (which Zane didn't seem all that enthusiastic for) as they ran.

They found Cole, who had Jay with him and was just as surprised as Zane to find out that Lloyd was still alive.

Jay didn't seem to care much about the fact that Lloyd was alive, though. He was more interested in the sand he was sitting on than anything else.

 _At least he stopped screaming,_ Lloyd thought to himself.

"This is GREAT!" Dareth exclaimed. "Four of the five ninjas, ready to fight against the Overlord and bring Ninjago back to normal!"

"I never agreed to joining your rebellion," Zane told Dareth in a stern tone. "And if you think _Jay's_ in any state to fight _anyone_ , you are worse off than him."

"I don't want to join anything either!" Cole agreed. "Where were you guys for the past six years?!"

Jay started screaming again.

"Stop screaming!" Cole cried.

"Don't you talk to him like that!" Zane scolded. "You haven't earned the right!"

"What's _your_ problem?!" Cole hissed.

Lloyd felt embarrassed, as if he was watching two parents fight in public. "Guys, stop."

"When Jay was first captured, _you_ , the _leader_ , refused to come with me to find him! You said he was off moping, and guess what?! He wasn't!"

"He _was_! And he's _still_ moping! I was locked up too, and _I_ didn't get like that!"

"Guys, stop fighting!" Lloyd yelled.

Nobody could be sure what exactly caused it, maybe Lloyd's screaming, or maybe Cole and Zane fighting, but all of a sudden Jay was gone again.

* * *

 _ **Pixal**_

It was a good thing she was out when she was, because if she wasn't, she wouldn't have found Jay all curled up in the sand, crying, and he would have died of starvation, or maybe of the vultures that were flocking around him.

Pixal chased the birds away and picked Jay up.

She remembered Zane informing her that he was breaking Jay out that day, so it explained why he was out, but it didn't explain where Zane was, not did it explain why he was crying like that (unless he was upset about getting out, but Pixal doubted that).

She kneeled by his side and shook him gently. "Hey there, are you okay?"

Jay sniffled in response.

"Why don't you get up and come with me?"

Jay nodded. "Why."

Pixal helped him up. "Okay, let's get you to the base. And when we get there, I'm having a very serious talk with Zane."

Jay nodded. "There."

Pixal was furious. Zane knew better than her about Jay's current state of mind, and he allowed for Jay to either get away or left him alone for a little too long.

 _He could have_ died _!_

* * *

 **Guess who's getting in trouble with Pixal?  
**

 **(Hint: Everybody involved)  
**


	16. Bloodstained

_**Overlord**_

Pythor had a good point about draining the Golden Power from Lloyd.

All he needed was someone who could find Lloyd and bring him in.

 _ **General X seems to be a good idea.**_

 _You leave Nya out of this! You already put that blasted microchip in her, don't make her hunt down Lloyd!_

" _ **General X, I have a special mission for you,"**_ the Overlord said into the speaker by his throne. _**"Please come and meet me in the throne room, and bring a janitor. Pythor made a mess of himself."**_

The Overlord smirked at the pile of ashes sitting in a pile in front of him.

 _ **Don't tell me you didn't enjoy that the slightest bit, ninja. I know you hated him.**_

 _Shut UP! Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!_

The Overlord grinned to himself as the little voice of the ninja faded away. Soon, there would be nothing to stop him from getting the Golden Power from Lloyd and becoming the Golden Master.

* * *

 _ **Kai**_

The darkness of the Overlord was always either all around him, or _inside_ him, and Kai wasn't sure which was worse anymore.

Either way, he was being controlled by the Overlord.

Sure, there were times when he could wrestle back control over his own body, but those times were getting rarer and rarer as time went on.

Sure, he managed to raise his arm a little and force the Overlord to miss hitting her with _his_ fire, which, paired with her ducking, saved her life, but when he tried again with Pythor, the Anacondrai was still turned into ashes.

But one couldn't fight the Overlord for years and years and not get tired.

Garmadon fought the Overlord for what? Two days? And he was dog-tired after Lloyd got rid of him.

After _seven years_ of fighting the Overlord, tiny little bits and pieces of himself slowly fading away over the time, Kai wasn't sure that there would be anything left over for Lloyd to _bring back_ with his Golden power, unlike with his father.

And he knew that the Overlord wasn't above playing dirty.

After all, that was how he got close enough to Nya to stick her microchip in her brain, and that was how he preferred to torture the only ninja other than Kai who witnessed Lloyd's murder.

Kai was just about ready to give up by the time Lloyd suddenly appeared, perfectly well and unharmed.

Then the Overlord demanded an explanation from Pythor, who said that Lloyd was, most likely, from an alternative Ninjago.

After all, the real Lloyd was dead.

Kai could only hope that he could somehow find a way to warn this alternative universe Lloyd about the Overlord.

And so, with his last little piece of self clinging to his body, he managed to convince the Overlord to send Nya to capture the AU Lloyd, knowing full well that the rebels figured out how to remove microchips and knowing for certain that with him gone, the Overlord would not hesitate to kill her in the same way he tried before and had managed to do with Pythor.

* * *

 _ **Pixal**_

Pixal had wrapped Jay in a fluffy blue blanket and put him to bed while she waited for Zane to return to the hideout with Cole, Lloyd, Garmadon and Dareth.

By the time the five of them arrived, Jay was sleeping, cuddling with an old kite she found, so she instantly shushed the others when they came in and somebody slammed the door shut.

"Do you have _any_ idea how long it took me to get him to fall asleep?!" Pixal shout-whispered at them. "And we are still going to have that talk about why I found him crying in the dessert!"

"He's faking it!" Cole said angrily. "He's doing it to get sympathy!"

Pixal wanted to slap him, and she wanted to slap Lloyd for being alive all this time and not letting anyone know, and she wanted to slap the rebels for not getting Jay out sooner, before the Overlord turned Jay into a pathetic mess and she wanted to slap Zane for not keeping a closer eye on Jay.

"I'm fairly certain that Jay would not fake something like this!" Pixal shout-whispered at Cole. She grabbed him by the eyebrow and pulled him closer. "And if you wake him it's not the _Overlord_ you have to worry about!"

When she let go of Cole, he rubbed his eyebrow and sighed.

"So what's with all these butterflies?" Dareth asked in an attempt to distract everybody from the conversation.

"They're not butterflies, they're Blood-Stained Goldmoths," Pixal told him.

Despite calling the blood-red moths "butterflies", which they were not, Dareth had a good point about them.

They were everywhere and the size of the palm of Pixal's hand.

"Well, Dareth's got a point; why are they so… everywhere?" Cole asked, distracted by the moths.

"If you don't know, I'm not telling you," Pixal told him.

To be honest, she didn't know why there were so many of the moths fluttering around either. There were nothing in the area that would attract the moths, the plants they laid their eggs on were very picky and would die as soon as it was taken from their native habitat.

The moths were a big mystery.

"You know, back in the other Ninjago, there was this charity for Star-Winged Goldmoths," Lloyd said. "The guy who ran the thing says they like electricity."

"I'm not sure if that's true, but at least for the Blood-Stained Goldmoths, it is untrue," Zane admitted. "I think they are just curious."

One of the moths rested on Lloyd's face to clean its feathery antennae, but it looked like the Green Ninja was bleeding from the head.

Lloyd tried to shoo it off, but three others joined it.

Then six more.

Lloyd must have been shooing them wrong.

* * *

 **So, Nya and Kai are both in huge trouble because of numerous reasons, but don't worry, Lloyd makes a pretty good perch for some freaky red moths!**

 **In case you're wondering, the Blood-Stained Goldmoths look like they've been dipped in fresh blood and are red all over. _NO OTHER COLOR ALLOWED! JUST BLOOD!_**

 **Just... What are they _doing_ in Ninjago? They can't breed in Ninjago because their flowers aren't there (and will die if someone tried to bring them over).**

 **Tune in next time for more moths!**


	17. Red Shadows

**_Lloyd_**

The moths seemed to like him, which was unfortunate, because as mentioned before, the feeling wasn't mutual.

They were really dumb, seeing as his "go away, moths!" gesture seemed to _attract_ the moths more than anything else.

Then somebody gently brushed the moths away from him.

When the red was no longer on his face, Lloyd found himself staring at Kai, who seemed just as surprised as himself.

He was no longer at Zane and Pixal's hideout, but instead, in some kind of dark mist.

"Lloyd?" Kai asked, his voice weak and tired.

"I know, I know, you thought I was dead," Lloyd sassed. "Where are we? Is this where the Overlord's keeping you?"

Kai let out a weak chuckle. "You could say that."

Looking at Kai made Lloyd shudder. Little bits of darkness seemed to be feeding off of him, like a bunch of snakes, but Lloyd would prefer if it _were_ snakes. Snakes were less creepy.

"Maybe I can help…" Lloyd started, but Kai interrupted him.

"Lloyd, you can help by _not_ helping me." Kai shooed away one of the little bits of darkness. "Help Nya instead. She's got a microchip. The Overlord's controlling her, so if she finds you, try and get the microchip out of her. She'll explain… I hope."

The moths that weren't on Lloyd's face, but on his clothes instead (making him look like _he_ was the red ninja instead of Kai) flapped their wings impatiently.

"What's going on, Kai?" Lloyd asked. "What's Nya supposed to explain?!"

Kai pulled Lloyd in for a hug. He didn't struggle. "Lloyd," Kai whispered, "You can't fall for the Overlord's tricks, okay? If he tells you something, don't believe it. Whatever person he's possessing? Better off dead, okay? No matter who it is, you need to kill him."

Lloyd wanted to argue that it wasn't how the Ninjas worked, but the moths decided to sit on his face again, swarming around him until he couldn't see anything anymore.

* * *

 ** _Jay_**

Jay woke up to someone crying.

The source of the crying was one of the fake Nindroids, who turned stopped and smiled at Jay, as if he wasn't crying moments ago.

 _Don't pretend you weren't crying five seconds ago, something's wrong, I know it._

"Wrong." Jay took the fake Nindroid's hand in his own. "Tell?"

The fake Nindroid turned pink again. "What?"

Jay mimicked crying and pointed at the fake Nindroid. "Why?"

"Why was I crying?" Jay nodded. "Um… no reason."

 _Yeah, right._ "Food?" Jay stood up and opened a door he hoped led to the inside of a fridge.

Nope, just a bunch of old clothes and shoes. One doesn't eat those.

Or do they?

Jay offered one of the old dresses in the closet to the fake Nindroid, who gave him a funny look as he took it. "Thanks?"

"Problem," Jay told him.

The fake Nindroid looked at the dress (which had a very pretty floral pattern) and back at Jay again. "What am I supposed to do with this?"

"Food?" Jay could vaguely remember somebody who always felt better after eating, so maybe it would work with the fake Nindroid?

"What the heck?" the fake Nindroid asked. "You want me to eat it, or eat _in_ it?"

Jay shrugged.

The fake Nindroid put the dress on the bed. "Maybe later."

Jay handed a pair of high-heel shoes to the fake Nindroid. "Here."

"Are you looking for something?" the fake Nindroid asked as he took the shoes.

"Food," Jay answered solemnly.

"I'll take you to the kitchen, then," the fake Nindroid told him, taking his hand and leading him away. "Do you know where the others are?"

Jay shook his head in response. "No."

"Hey, just wondering, but do you know anything about the moths that are running all over Ninjago?" the fake Nindroid asked.

"Moth." That was all Jay knew about the moths that were running all over Ninjago.

"Okay…" The fake Nindroid sounded sad.

Okay, then. Time to feed him, and quick.

* * *

 ** _Garmadon_**

There was a rather strange sight waiting for them once they returned to the old abandoned farmhouse Zane and Pixal had made into their home.

Lloyd was sitting on a stool, wearing a pained expression as Jay was talking nonsense and making a mess while trying to make eggs on the stove.

"What happened?" Pixal asked, pulling Jay away from the stove. "Oh no."

"He wouldn't let me get up to help him find a frying pan, so he just gave up and started making them _without_ the pan!" Lloyd complained. "I think he's hungry or something."

Jay said some gibberish and waved his spatula at Pixal.

"Why don't I clean up here, and afterwards, I'll make something to eat?" Zane suggested politely.

Jay nodded seriously, gravely handed Garmadon the spatula and left the kitchen, going back to the room he was sleeping in when Garmadon and the others went hunting the barn and shed for something that would get rid of the moths bothering Lloyd.

"Do you think moths can have magical powers?" Lloyd asked suddenly.

* * *

 **Fun facts: Today, the baby Mynah pooped in my hair and I had to wash it, and now, for some reason, I can't move my work from Word to here. I had to Copy and Paste :(  
**

 **Lloyd's right, there's something not quite right about the Goldmoths.**

 **Poor Zane, having to clean the egg off the stove, all because Jay couldn't find a pan. I'm sorry, but what do you call those round things on the stove in English? The only word I'm getting is plate.**

 **Also, poor Kai. _Poor Kai_!**


	18. Denial

**_Lloyd_**

Everybody was looking at him strangely once he mentioned the possibility of the moths being magical.

"What makes you ask that, son?" his father asked, looking surprised.

"I think the moths gave me a vision or something," he explained.

"What did you see?" Zane asked, scrubbing the burner Jay was using to try and make eggs without the use of a pan.

"I think I saw Kai." Something crashed in Jay's room. "He said that…"

"EEEK!" Jay's voice screamed. The Blue Ninja ran to the kitchen in a hurry, letting out a panicked scream as he grabbed Lloyd by the face. "What?!"

Cole pulled Jay away from Lloyd. "He's going to _tell_ us, Jay! Go ahead, Lloyd."

"He said that we shouldn't help him and that Nya's go a microchip so the Overlord can control her and she's looking for us and she'll explain when she finds us and if we get it out of her."

"Kai?" Jay sounded surprised as he was wrestling to get away from Cole. "Nya?"

"Jay, this is _serious_!" Cole scolded. "You have to stop this! It's not funny!"

Jay kicked Cole in the face, causing the Black Ninja (still dressed in blue) to drop him on the floor.

Jay didn't seem to care. He jumped up again and grabbed Lloyd by the face, franticly pulling him closer as he did so.

"Cry?" Jay asked soft enough for only Lloyd to hear. Some gibberish, and then Jay looked extremely worried. "Scared?"

Cole rubbed his face where Jay kicked him before he tried to pull Jay away from Lloyd.

Jay's grip on Lloyd's hair, however, caused the Green Ninja to be pulled along with him.

* * *

 ** _Cole_**

"Don't just stand there, help me!" Zane continued scrubbing the stove burner. "Zane!"

Jay refused to let go of Lloyd's hair, so no matter how hard Cole pulled him, Lloyd was forced to come along.

"Jay, what's the matter with you?!"

Cole refused to believe that the Overlord had had Jay tortured so badly. He was faking, right?

He _had_ to be!

Jay made a panicked sound and bit Cole.

 _Hard._

Cole was, in fact, bleeding where Jay bit him. At least he let go of Lloyd.

"Why'd you do that?!"

Jay turned white and kicked Cole in the face before running into a corner and lying there in a fetal position, crying and rubbing his mouth at the same time.

Cole turned white as the realisation hit him. Jay wasn't faking it. Jay was lying in a bundle on the ground, helplessly crying and Cole kept insisting that his best friend was just looking for attention.

 _Great, now I feel like a jerk._

Jay flinched when Cole made a motion as if to touch him.

"Could you please just let him be?" Zane asked, looking up from the stove as he did so.

Cole nodded and left the farmhouse without another word.

* * *

 ** _General X_**

Nya was an excellent tracker.

Even _without_ the yellow moths fluttering ahead of her as if to show her something, she would have found Lloyd eventually.

Maybe not as soon as she did _with_ the moths, but she would have found him.

The moths led her to an old abandoned farm, overgrown with weeds and surrounded by chickens and a couple of feral horses and cows.

As she walked, she started finding parts of Nindroids stuck on sharpened sticks and on the ground.

Somebody _clearly_ wanted to keep the Nindroids _far_ away.

The records about the area told her that there _used_ to be a village nearby, but it was completely destroyed by the Overlord shortly after he took over Ninjago. Maybe the farmer and his family are wiped out along with it.

So it was obviously a surprised when she found Cole by the house, looking upset and tired for some reason.

He didn't see her.

He looked like he was crying.

 _Stop crying and look up!_

Hiding in the shadows, Nya had the perfect advantage.

Cole didn't stand a chance against her.

With him out of the way, nobody on the inside stood a chance either.

* * *

 **For those who are curious, she's wearing a mask like Iron Man's, just a little different (makes sense because Samurai X was kinda like Iron Man), so no. Nobody's going to know it's her when she comes in, except maybe Jay? Dunno.  
**

 **Cole's okay, just knocked out. Nya wasn't ordered to kill anyone, just to bring Lloyd to the Overlord (alive).**

 **The moths might be helpful, but they're not exactly very moral. Thank you for helping me with the stove issue! They're called "plaate" in my mother language, so :/**


	19. General X

**_Jay (Flashback)_**

 _It's the Overlord, not Kai._ _It's the Overlord, not Kai. It's the Overlord, not Kai. It's the Overlord, not Kai…_

 _Not Kai who killed Lloyd. Not Kai who threatened to kill me if I tell._

 _Maybe I can help. I can help. I can help. I can help._ _I can help. I can't help._

Jay took apart his laptop.

Jay took apart his phone.

Jay took apart his bike.

Oh, how he'd miss his bike…

 _No, stop. You can do this. And if you_ can't _, well, you_ have _to. This is important. This is for Lloyd and Kai. If you fail. Everything. Is. Over._

He also managed to steal some of the others' stuff and take them apart. They thought they misplaced their phones, laptops, hairdryers and the blender. Nobody thought to ask Jay if he'd seen them, because Jay was not a thief.

"Kai" wasn't very interested in what Jay was doing, which was a good thing.

He was almost done, and if the Overlord were to find out what he was building, it would be over.

 _It would be all for nothing. Can't have that now, can we?_

Jay was shaking as he worked.

 _Can't have that now._

His hands wouldn't listen to him. They continued shaking. If he got caught, he would join Lloyd's rotting corpse.

 _Deep breaths. In. Out. In. Out. In. Out._

"Dinner's ready!" Garmadon called from the kitchen.

"Not hungry!" Jay answered.

"Don't worry, Blabbermouth! I didn't make it!" Cole yelled at Jay from the kitchen.

"I'm not hungry!" Jay yelled back. "I'm very busy!"

"You have to eat!" Zane yelled from the kitchen.

Jay didn't answer.

 _Almost done._

If the contraption sitting in front of him worked the way it should, it would copy Lloyd's burst of Golden Power like when he defeated the Overlord when he was possessing Garmadon.

He just needed to hide it somewhere safe.

Jay tilted his head at the machine in front of him.

"You, sir," Jay told the machine, "look like trash."

 _I_ could _hide it in the junkyard, but Mom and Dad might accidently sell it or use it for scrap. Maybe…_

* * *

 ** _General X (Present Day)_**

She managed to knock Cole out with ease.

He was distracted by whatever upset him so much, and with him out of the way, Nya would be able to capture Lloyd much easier.

The device in her helmet allowed her to scan four human beings and two robots inside the farmhouse.

There was very little trace of the Golden Power the Overlord wanted so badly.

 _The Overlord's going crazy for_ that _? There's not much going around…_

The yellow moths led her around back, to a window that wasn't locked, through which she entered.

If she listened hard enough, she could hear them telling her to follow them.

 _"This way, this way!"_

As she continued following them, little red ones started joining the yellow ones.

She managed to avoid the four others in the kitchen and simply walked into the bedroom where Lloyd was talking to a little blue bundle on the floor.

When Lloyd noticed her, he pushed her down into the corner.

The red and yellow of the moths fluttered around the little blue bundle, no longer speaking to her and instead, causing the blue bundle on the floor to reveal itself to be Jay (who looked very surprised at the moths).

How he escaped, she didn't know.

She was happy that he was out, away from the facility he was kept in for so long, but if the Overlord were to find out (most likely within the next month), he would be captured and locked up again before he could even register what was happening.

Jay looked just as surprised about her being there as he seemed to be about the moths.

He rolled over onto his back and kicked her mask off, blabbering some gibberish at her before apparently deciding to take a nap right where he was.

"Nya?!" Lloyd gasped, sounding completely surprised.

She tackled him.

* * *

 ** _Dareth_**

Lloyd came bursting through the kitchen, being tackled by Nya, who he didn't expect to be there.

Zane jumped back from the stove while Dareth tried to see if she was a Chip or not.

The tell-tale black speck was there.

Once he figured _that_ out, he signalled for Garmadon to grab Nya (which he did) while he grabbed a knife from the drawer to try and cut the Chip out.

Lloyd screamed at Dareth not to kill her (which, understandably, was what it looked like when he was going towards her with the knife) while Zane and Pixal joined Garmadon in holding Nya down.

Pixal sprayed something in Nya's face, which caused her to pass out.

 _Careful now. If you mess this up she might die…_

* * *

 **For those of you wondering why Jay was the only one the Overlord tortured personally...**

 **If you're wondering why Cole's Chip got out so easily and Nya might die if Dareth messes it up, Cole's Chip is, as mentioned before, an old model and Nya's is the most advanced model. Not meant to come out just like that, ya know?**


	20. Fancy Flying

_**Nya**_

Nya woke up in the middle of the night, with a dead-tired Garmadon sleeping on a chair right next to her and her microchip missing.

The first thing she did was scream until she could no more, waking Garmadon and causing several panicked people to hurry in to see what was going on.

Once she was done screaming, she grabbed Garmadon and cried into his shoulder because he was the closest person at the moment.

"Um…" Garmdaon said when she refused to let go of him.

"He has Kai!" Nya sobbed.

Garmadon patted her back. "It's okay, Nya. We're going to get him back as soon as possible."

Nya cried harder. "Don't!"

When Jay came in, last of everybody, the first thing he did was look at Nya. Then he screamed. Then he left the room.

 _He's scared of me now… Not that I can blame him…_

Lloyd was in her face now. "What does Kai want you to tell me?" the Green Ninja asked in a hushed tone.

Nya let go of Garmadon and wiped her face with her sleeve. "What?"

"Kai said you were going to explain something to me, what is it?!"

Nya shook her head. "I don't know. I didn't see him in _years_."

"Why don't you go back to sleep," Cole (who had twelve Band-Aids on his face and three in his hair) suggested, "and maybe you could tell us what happened in the morning?"

Nya nodded and went into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

 _ **Lloyd**_

Nya was keeping something from him, and he wanted to find out what it was.

Kai _told_ him that Nya was supposed to explain why they couldn't rescue him, and now, for some reason, she refused.

 _Why doesn't anybody ever tell me what's going on around here?_

He was _going_ to find out what was wrong with Kai, even if he had to go to Ninjago City (Dareth said it was called Overlord City now) by himself and _squeeze_ it out of the Overlord himself.

Well, not _now_ , but maybe in the morning he would summon his Elemental Dragon and fly to Ninjago City and personally make sure the Overlord told him what was wrong with Kai.

Lloyd smirked proudly to himself as he made his plans.

 _First, I have to find a weapon. Not going to be hard, with all of these old Nindroids here… Those things have some kind of built-in weapons system, could use one of those. Have to leave a note, though. Can't have everybody worrying about me._

The Green Ninja was so excited about his plans for the next day, while everybody was still sleeping. He would use the Gi of one of the Nindroids outside to disguise himself, and he'd land a little bit outside the city as to avoid attention.

It was a great plan.

Nothing could change it, not even the First Spinjitsu Master himself.

* * *

 _ **Jay**_

He was worried about the blond fake Nindroid, which didn't stop when morning came. He had a bad feeling that he would do something dangerous and get himself hurt.

So he made sure that he woke up at the same time as the fake Nindroid and followed him around in the shadows of the house, hoping that he would be able to talk some sense into him.

Nobody else was awake yet, but Jay didn't know the others well enough to rudely wake them up so early and he was still nervous about Nya, so she was _definitely_ off the list of people he'd like to wake up.

He followed the fake Nindroid all morning.

He watched as the fake Nindroid left a note and then, he followed the fake Nindroid outside, where he put on the clothes that were left behind by the real Nindroids.

Then there was a dragon.

A great big green dragon that appeared out of thin air.

And made itself ready to take off.

The fake Nindroid was on the dragon's back, ready to fly away with the dragon.

 _What are you doing up there?! Get down! Get off!_

Without even thinking, Jay ran in front of the dragon, flailing his arms and trying to get the attention of its rider.

"No! No!"

The rider appeared to notice him, but he didn't get off the dragon. He just urged the dragon to take off.

 _You can't leave! The Overlord's going to kill you! He's going to pretend to be Kai, and he's going to kill you!_

Then Jay did something he _really_ shouldn't have done.

Right as the dragon flew over his head, Jay grabbed its leg and clung on to it for dear life.

 _Well, I'm going to regret_ this _for the rest of my life._

The dragon didn't try to kick him off, which was good, but its rider didn't notice him, so he didn't land.

He wanted to go down, but at the moment, down was a little far to be safe.

He wanted to scream, but he had a feeling that it he did _that_ , the dragon would vanish and both he and the rider would go splat.

He had a great view, though.

* * *

 **Nya should have just told the rebels about Kai instead of keeping it a secret. Now Lloyd's going to try and pick a fight with the Overlord and he picked up a stowaway by accident.**

 **Poor Jay doesn't want to go splat... And Lloyd doesn't even know he's there. Let's just hope he doesn't try to do any fancy flying tricks :I  
**


	21. Dragon World!

_**Lloyd**_

His dragon wasn't going as fast as usual and let him know of a weird feeling by its leg when they were about halfway to Ninjago City, about early noon.

When Lloyd looked down, he found Jay of all people clinging to his dragon's leg for dear life and looking terrified the whole time.

 _Oh no! How long has he been there?_

Lloyd landed his dragon in the middle of a field and made it disappear back to wherever dragons go when they're not in Ninjago.

Jay let out a soft gasp once the dragon was no longer there and turned to Lloyd with wide, horrified blue eyes. "No…"

 _Great, what's wrong this time?_

Lloyd felt like a monster for being mad at Jay, but he wasn't supposed to _be_ there. He took a deep breath and counted to ten. "What's wrong?"

Jay blinked at the spot where his dragon was only seconds ago and wiped his face with his sleeve. "Dead…"

 _Oh! He thinks my dragon's dead._

"Don't worry, he's okay, he's just back in…" Lloyd wondered for a moment about where the dragons go when not summoned, "…in the Dragon World."

 _I can't take him with me to Ninjago City! He's in his pyjamas! And he's in no state to take care of himself anyway!_

Jay tilted his head. "Dragon… World?"

Lloyd nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, he's just back in the Dragon World! He's come back, okay? He's not dead."

Jay kicked a lump of grass. "Dragon World…"

 _No what am I going to do about him? I can't take him with me, I can't_ leave _him, but if I go back, Dad's going to try and make me stay._

Lloyd sat down on the grass and sighed. Jay copied him and grumbled some gibberish at him to boot.

 _Wait, is he mad at me?! I didn't ask him to come along!_ I _should be mad!_

"Why?" Jay whispered once the gibberish was over.

"The Overlord isn't keeping Kai where he says he is," Lloyd told Jay. "I'm going to try and get it out of him. And _you_ can't stop me!"

Jay seemed to be considering what Lloyd was saying. "Don't."

Lloyd folded his arms moodily. "And why not?!"

Jay flinched when Lloyd's voice got mad. "Kai…"

"Didn't you hear what I said?! I'm going to find out where Kai is!"

Jay paled and grabbed Lloyd by the arms and shook him. "No! Don't! Please!"

"Stop shaking me or I'm going to leave you here!" Lloyd shouted.

Jay didn't stop shaking him. "Don't! He'll die!"

* * *

 _ **Garmadon**_

Garmadon was the first person to wake up.

He knocked on every door to wake the others up and went to the kitchen, where he found that note.

 _I'm going to Ninjago City to find out what happened to Kai. -Lloyd_

After Garmadon, Nya arrived, looking like she had been crying.

"I can't find Jay! I think he's run away! He's scared of me!" she cried.

"Calm down, Nya. Maybe he's just outside," Garmadon told the girl. "Or hiding in one of the closets."

Garmadon opened one of the cupboards to see if Jay was hiding there (who knew, he might be in there) behind the cups and plates.

 _Not here._

"And now Lloyd's gone too!" Nya groaned, reading the note his son left behind. " _Now_ what?!"

"I'm going after him. I think he's going to find out where the Overlord's keeping your brother."

Nya looked guilty.

"What?" the former Dark Lord asked sternly.

"He's possessing Kai. He has been ever since the field trip to Borg Industries."

"Does the others know about this?!" Garmadon asked, getting mad. "How long did _you_ know?!"

"The Overlord captured Jay first. He pretended to be Kai when he tortured him."

 _He might do that to Lloyd!_

Nya continued speaking, sounding weirdly emotionless as she did so. "He tortured Jay until he could barely remember his own name, forcing Kai to watch. When he got me, he made me help him. He made me help him drag Jay to the torture chambers of that horrible place, and when he was too busy with something else to torture him, he'd just leave Jay without any food or water."

"He's going to do the same thing to Lloyd if he catches him," Garmadon whispered.

 _I'm not going to lose my son again!_

* * *

 **I have some very dark plans in store for Garmadon.  
**

 **Boy, Zane, Pixal, Dareth and Cole sure take a long time waking up...**


	22. WTF, Moth!

_**Dareth**_

When he arrived in the kitchen, he found Nya sitting there alone, crying into her arms.

"Hey there, kiddo," Dareth greeted her, "how are we feeling today?"

Nya sniffled in response. "Garmadon's going to Overlord City so the Overlord doesn't torture Lloyd until he's like Jay and Jay ran away because I'm here and if the Overlord kills Lloyd again, it's going to kill Kai…"

"Why would Jay run away just because you're here?" Zane's voice asked behind Dareth. The Brown Ninja nearly let out an undignified scream, but instead, he let out an undignified squeak.

Zane, Cole and Nya all gave him confused looks, but didn't say anything.

Dareth turned to Cole and Zane, who were behind him. "So, I'm going back to the Rebel Base this afternoon. I have to let the others know what happened. If you want to come along, we're leaving at twelve sharp and if you're not ready by then, I'm leaving without you. Cole, your father and the Royal Blacksmiths are at the base, and Nya, Jay's parents are there, if that helps. Zane, I know you and Pixal don't have much love for the Rebels, and that's okay, but if you want to come along, we will be very happy to have you with us. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to pack."

* * *

 _ **Jay (Flashback)**_

When he returned to the Destiny's Bounty, "Kai" was standing in front of Jay's device, eyeing it suspiciously.

 _Oh no. Oh no. I'm dead._ _I'm dead. I'm dead._ _I'm dead._ _I'm dead. Dead, dead, deadity dead._

"So, what does this fancy-looking machine do?" the Overlord asked.

 _Make something up! Quick!_

"It's none of your business, Kai." He had to make sure that the Overlord didn't know that he knew. If he knew that he knew…

"Where are the blueprints?" the Overlord asked, sounding very interested.

"Like I said, it's none of your business."

 _I didn't make any blueprints. I memorized them. I memorized the entire plan for this thing._

"Don't you talk back to me. You don't want what happened to Lloyd to happen to you too, do you?"

"If you kill me, I'm going to come back as a ghost and possess you and make you do stupid stuff," Jay told him.

The Overlord looked fascinated. "Of course… Lloyd's ghost…"

 _This is bad._ _This is bad._ _This is bad._ _This is bad…_

"What are you talking about?" Jay asked, hoping to distract the Overlord for long enough to allow himself to escape. He could rebuild the machine, himself, however, not as much.

"His soul _had_ to go somewhere. If only I could find it…"

 _Whelp, I'm outta here!_

Jay turned around and started to run, but before he could escape, the Overlord grabbed him and strapped him to the machine intended to rip the Overlord out of Kai.

" _ **I bet you thought I didn't know what you were up to, little ninja,"**_ the Overlord's voice hissed from Kai's body, _ **"but you were wrong. This little machine of yours is meant to rip me out of your friend's body, right?"**_

An animalistic grin spread over Kai's face.

" _ **Let's see what happens when it's used on you."**_

* * *

 _ **Lloyd (Present Day)  
**_

Jay wouldn't tell him who was going to die if he went to confront the Overlord.

Instead, the Blue Ninja was talking gibberish to himself and walking behind Lloyd as he walked towards Ninjago City.

As they walked, a huge purple moth with great big red "eyes" on its wings fluttered by.

Man, but was he _sick_ of moths. Sure, they were helpful, but he couldn't help but have a bad feeling that something weird was going to happen whenever he saw one of them.

Then Jay let out a panicked scream.

When Lloyd turned around, the moth with the great big eyes was sitting on Jay's face. The Blue Ninja was freaking out and trying to get the moth off himself as the moth seemed to be trying to make itself comfortable on the panicking ninja's face.

"Off! Off!" Jay screamed, flailing about as the moth positioned its wings in a way to make it look like he was wearing it as a mask, with the "eyes" right over Jay's eyes.

Lloyd ran over to help Jay get the moth off his face (the hugeness of the bug freaking him out), but before he could, the moth vanished.

It didn't fly away, it just… vanished.

Jay stopped panicking and looked around, as if he was looking for the moth.

"Don't worry, it's gone," Lloyd told his friend.

 _Where did it go?_

Jay's eyed turned red, the same colour as the moth's "eyes", and he stopped looking around.

He turned his attention to Lloyd and gave him a big grin. "It worked."

Lloyd took a step back. "Jay? What's going on?!" He couldn't help how high his voice got.

Jay's grin went away and his expression turned grim. "Right. You can't go to Overlord City. I don't _care_ what you call it back in your own timeline, but don't go there. The Overlord? When Kai said you can help by _not_ helping, he meant that you shouldn't go to Overlord City. _Don't_ confront the Overlord just yet. Getting yourself killed again is just going to make things worse for Kai."

"You're not Jay…" Lloyd whispered. He backed away, but he tripped over a branch that wasn't there a second ago. "What happened to him?!"

"We just had to warn you, okay?" Jay's eyes started turning blue again. "Sorry about possessing your friend, but _two_ Lloyds in the Cursed Realm will be pretty hard to explain to our Master, and he's not…"

The moth reappeared on Jay's face and fluttered off once his eyes were blue again.

Before Lloyd could even react to the strangeness surrounding what just happened, Jay fell down on top of Lloyd, completely unconscious.

Now, Lloyd was _certain_ that there was something freaky going on with the moths.

* * *

 **The moths are getting freaky and my baby bird is starting to fly. I woke up this morning and he was sitting next to my phone. Then, after I finished showering, he flew all the way to my bed and sat in my hair for a while.  
**

 **But seriously, the moths are getting freaky.**

 **Poor other Lloyd, stuck in the Cursed Realm, most likely with Morro. Imagine how freaked out he would be is our Lloyd were to die in this timeline! But the moths would be in trouble...**

 **Poor, poor Jay. And Kai too, I guess. I wonder what that machine did to Jay? Is it still in one piece?! Or is it going to have to be rebuilt?**


	23. The Device: Part 1

_**Jay**_

He woke up cuddling something soft and fluffy and person-shaped.

The last thing he remembered was that huge moth sitting on his face, then everything went dark, as if there was nothing.

The soft and fluffy person-shaped thing was the blond fake Nindroid who flew off on the glowing green dragon that had died when they landed.

 _No, wait, it went back to the Dragon World. I wonder what it's like there. I bet there's dragons. Lots and lots of dragons. I wonder if Wisp's there. I wonder if he misses me…_

Jay poked the sleeping fake Nindroid in the face and grinned at him when he woke up. "Good morning, Honey." The fake Nindroid groaned, sounding very annoyed, but then he seemed shocked.

"What did you say?"

Jay shrugged, no longer grinning. It was hurting his face. "Hello."

The fake Nindroid blinked at him, no longer excited. "Hi."

 _Wow._ Somebody _woke up on the wrong side of the ground. Maybe I could show him the… the… the…_

"THE THING!" Jay screamed out, causing the blond fake Nindroid to let out a scream and fall over.

"Aaah!" the fake Nindroid cried out.

 _We have to find the thing! No, wait, it blew up._

"BLUEPRINTS!" Jay let out excitedly.

"What blueprints?!" the fake Nindroid asked, sounding completely panicked.

 _No, wait, there aren't any. It's in my head._

"Nevermind," Jay mumbled, feeling embarrassed.

* * *

 _ **Overlord**_

 _ **Well, would you look at that, that pesky little ninja's not here anymore.**_ The Overlord quietly walked towards the monitor, watching the screen as the former Lord Garmadon snuck into his tower. _**So, nothing's going to stop me from doing this.**_

With the press of a button, fully able to control the Red Ninja's body now, he set the alarm to go off and caused all of his security Nindroids to come storming out of the walls and capture his former host.

Not that he would possess him again, no. He spent too much hard work on this one. He had other plans.

 _ **It's going to be so ironic.**_

" _ **Take him to the torture chambers and ready the device. I'm planning on having a nice, long chat with an old friend, and I do not wish to be disturbed,"**_ the Overlord said into the intercom. _**"Anyone who does so will be given the same treatment."**_

* * *

 _ **Nya**_

She should have just _told_ Lloyd what was going on, but _noooo_ , she decided to be stubborn and let him think that there's nothing wrong with trying to go find out where Kai was in Overlord City.

And now Garmadon was probably already there, being tortured, Lloyd was dead and Jay was scared of her for a good reason.

When she confessed to the others, she was treated more kindly than she deserved.

"You were a Chip, Nya. It's not your fault," Dareth comforted her. "You couldn't control your actions."

 _A Chip? WTF, Dareth? I was still a human being._

"What do you mean by her having been a Chip?" Zane asked from where he was, looking for Jay in the kitchen drain for some reason. "I've heard rebels using that word for certain people, but I never had any context."

"It refers to people with a microchip in them. Nya was a Chip, Jay's parents were Chips, Cole was a Chip, most of Overlord City is populated by Chips," Dareth explained.

 _Oh._

"So, Nya, are you coming to the base?" Dareth asked. "I have to tell everybody what happened and I have to make sure that the Walkers don't murder Lou."

"Why do they want to kill my dad?" Cole asked. "What happened?"

"Just a little harmless rivalry. Semi-harmless. Okay, not at all harmless. Lou has stitches," Dareth trailed off. "Edna can be surprisingly vicious when she wants to be."

"I think I'm going to stay here," Nya mumbled. "Don't want to get stitches."

Dareth opened his mouth as if to argue, but a thoughtful look came over his face, which then turned into one of horror, then he nodded. "You should stay here."

* * *

 _ **Garmadon**_

The Nindroids were like bees protecting their queen; they swarmed Garmadon and no matter what he did, they just kept coming.

He was the intruder and they were directly under the control of the Overlord.

His _personal_ servants.

But they weren't interested in killing him. They were more interested in _restraining_ him and dragging him to a room marked with a huge red 'G'.

His blood ran cold as he realised that the Overlord was expecting him. Has been waiting for him to come back.

Maybe he planned on using Wu or Misako as bait (neither of whom he'd seen since the Overlord took over). Maybe he was going to possess Garmadon again, forcing him to helplessly watch as he attacked his beloved home yet again.

He was strapped to a strange machine that had too many buttons to make sense and a blender-looking thing in front of him.

For a moment, he thought he was going to be blended into a smoothie, but that didn't seen quite right.

His senses sharpened when he heard the footsteps of someone entering the room.

Wearing polished black armour with a red tint, was the Overlord.

" _ **Hello, old friend, I've been waiting for this for a long time,"**_ the Overlord said with a wicked grin. _**"I have some**_ **special** _ **plans for you."**_

* * *

 **Well, guess who's no longer there to restrain the Overlord?  
**

 **Kai's either _very_ weak, or he's dead...**

 **OMG, what's the Overlord going to do to Garmadon?! Will he be okay?!**


	24. The Device: Part 2

_**Garmadon**_

The Overlord didn't seem to know how exactly the torture device he was strapped into worked.

He was just pressing random buttons, reminding Garmadon of Lord Chen and his weird love for buttons, only angrier because he didn't know what the buttons did.

At one point, the blender-looking thing in front of him blended as if it was making a smoothie, but when nothing happened after an hour of whirring, the Overlord hissed and tried to twitch it off, only for some loud polka music to start playing at an unholy volume.

" _ **MAKE IT STOP!"**_ The Overlord clutched his ears and kicked the device, which stopped the music and the whirring almost instantly.

"Is this your first time using this thing?" Garmadon asked in a sarcastic tone of voice once everything was calm and quiet again. "Maybe you should go get the instruction manual."

" _ **There ISN'T one!"**_ the Overlord growled, pressing another button. A sharp white light shot into Garmadon's eyes so bright, he could _just_ see the white.

"Is there any reason for this? Didn't your right-hand-snake write one for you?" Garmadon teased. "Or was he just not that smart?"

" _ **This bad boy? The inventor was a**_ **brilliant** _ **person, but not Pythor,"**_ the Overlord said in a way that reminded Garmadon of a teenage boy talking about a sports car. _**"He built it to tear me out of my host, but I turned it on him before he had the chance. After that, he earned my**_ **personal** _ **attention in his prison."**_

Another button was pushed.

White electricity ran through Garmadon's body, causing him to scream out in pain while the Overlord had a very pleased look on his face. _**"The original model blew up, of course. It used too much power and blew up while the boy was on it, screaming in quite a similar way to the way you are screaming right now."**_

"Where's my son?" Garmadn hissed between gritted teeth. "What have you done to him?!"

The Overlord looked confused. _**"Lloyd? You are being tortured by one of the most perfect devices for this purpose in all of Ninjago, and you worry about**_ **your son** _ **?"**_

"Where is he?" Garmadon asked, screaming when the electricity came back at full swing.

The Overlord put his face so close to Garmadon that they were almost touching. _**"He's not here."**_

* * *

 _ **Lloyd**_

Jay was walking behind Lloyd, making yummy-noises as he chewed the black Nindroid-shirt he was given to wear so he wouldn't be in Ninjago City in just his pyjamas.

"Are you hungry?" Lloyd asked Jay for the third time since they woke up from their surprise nap.

"No," Jay said, taking the shirt out of his mouth for a moment to speak. Then the shirt went back in.

"Look, the first village we get to, we're going to get some food and clothes." Lloyd grabbed the shirt from Jay, who started crying like a toddler who couldn't get what he wanted.

 _Take deep breaths. Now, calm down. He's been through a lot, who knows, I'd be eating my shirt too if I was used as a human battery._

"You have to put it on, like how you put on your pyjamas," Lloyd explained.

Jay looked confused.

"You _do_ remember how to dress yourself, right?" Lloyd returned the shirt to Jay's hand, from where it was immediately returned to his mouth.

 _Who dressed you if it wasn't_ you _?!_

"Who dressed you?" Lloyd asked, 1oo% done with his shirt-eating friend.

"Pixies." Jay continued eating the shirt.

 _PIXIES?!_

"Jay, give me that back!" Again, Lloyd grabbed the shirt from Jay, and again, Jay started crying.

"No!" Tears started forming in Jay's eyes as he tried to take his shirt back, but Lloyd was stronger than him by far.

"You can't eat clothes!"

Jay dropped won on the ground and curled up in a little ball, where he cried and refused to move as soon as his grip was away from the shirt.

* * *

 _ **Zane (Flashback)**_

Zane was pleased to see Jay back upstairs after having locked himself in his room for days, no, weeks, to work on his mystery project.

But…

Something was wrong.

Jay's eyes were dull and he had turned extremely pale, causing his freckles to be more apparent.

And when Cole touched Jay's shoulder and asked him if he was okay, the Blue Ninja reacted overly negatively, slapping his hand away and screaming at him.

"Don't touch me! Don't ever touch me!" were Jay's exact words. "Youyouyuyouyou… Traitor!"

Cole didn't take that reaction to him trying to comfort his friend very well and yelled right back at him. "What?! Are you _seriously_ still mad about that stupid perfect match thing?! Now?! Lloyd's dead, Jay! Our friend is _dead_ , Sensei's a cyborg and _you_ are more worried about being mad about Nya?! You know, maybe if you weren't so _distracted_ about this, you could've been there when the Overlord killed Lloyd and stop him, but _nooo_ , Mr Walker's more concerned about who's going to end up with Nya!"

It was as if saying her name summoned Nya (and Kai) into the room.

Nya seated herself between Cole and Jay, while Kai sat on the other side of Jay.

"Could you pass me the salt, please?" Kai asked, oblivious of Jay and Cole's earlier argument.

Jay angrily threw the pot of salt at Kai, hitting him in the face, before storming out of the room.

"Did you talk with him?" Zane asked Kai, who was busy rubbing the salt out of his face.

"I did, I don't know why he's acting like this." Kai stood up and went after Jay. "I'm going to check on him."

When Kai came back, he told everybody that he couldn't find Jay.

He'd run away.

* * *

 **Well, Jay's mad, but not because of Nya...**

 **And poor Lloyd, having to deal with a nineteen-year-old toddler. He was doing okay earlier... :(**

 **Who wants to bet that Jay _didn't_ run away?**


	25. Two Ninjas walk into a Bar

_**Neuro**_

Neuro was sitting in a bar, casually throwing back drinks and listening for anyone who might be chipped or a cyborg and thus, working for the Overlord.

In some cases, a Chip wasn't needed to convince somebody to work for the Overlord, which really angered Ash, the Master of Smoke, who was sitting next to Neuro, because he felt that it was as good as being a traitor to mankind.

Neuro, however, wasn't quite sure if Ash was right.

 _There are a lot of things the Overlord is willing to do if you_ don't _do as he says._

"Hey, Neuro," his self-appointed bodyguard shot out, "what's up with those two kiddos? They look pretty young to be in here, don't you agree?"

When Neuro spun his chair around, he saw two teenagers with a rather bizarre taste in fashion walking in.

The one looked to be about nineteen and was wearing bright blue pyjamas. His hair looked like it's been cut with a pair of safety scissors by a toddler and on his feet were a pair of dirty bunny slippers.

His friend, on the other hand, was about sixteen and was wearing a standard Countryside Nindroid Uniform, but the overshirt was tied around his waist and his light blonde hair had dirt and multiple bright pink flowers in it.

The Master of mind then read their minds.

"The one in the pyjamas is too scrambled to read accurately, but the other one is going to try and fight the Overlord," Neuro told Ash. "Something about finding his friend."

Ash shot back another drink.

* * *

 _ **Garmadon**_

" _ **Do you remember when you had**_ **four** _ **arms?"**_ the Overlord asked, almost wistfull. _**"Now you have two. I wonder how your son would react if… I don't know… that amount changes again?"**_

Garmadon had been moved to another machine after the Overlord gave up on trying to figure out the first device.

Multiple sharp things were pointed down at him.

Then they came down.

Garmadon wasn't killed, but his right arm had been was just an open wound.

" _ **One down, one to go."**_ Garmadon shot the Overlord a hateful look. _**"Oh, don't look at me like that, I'm not going to turn you into a cyborg like I did with your precious baby brother, I'm just going to…"**_

The Overlord seemed to vanish into his host's body, leaving behind the only pupil of his brother who hadn't been rescued from the Dark Lord's clutches.

Kai didn't look very good.

He looked like he hadn't slept since the Overlord took over Ninjago, his skin was paler than Jay's was when he was first rescued and yet, despite looking like the phrase "looks like death" was invented for him, he was grinning wickedly.

"… make him watch the next one," Kai's voice said. Wu appeared next to him, emotionlessly staring at Garmadon.

* * *

 _ **Zane**_

"Maybe Jay went with Lloyd," Nya suggested after Jay wasn't found anywhere. "Lloyd never said he was going _alone_ , and I doubt that Jay's going to like being here with me around."

"If Lloyd allowed Jay to go with him to battle the Overlord, he is the most irresponsible person ever," Pixal shot back coldly. "As you said, he was tortured until he couldn't remember his own name anymore, he's not the first person one should take along if you are going to battle the Overlord."

"I found Jay and Lloyd's footprints outside, a sudden dragon and then, the footprints stopped. If it wasn't Jay or Lloyd, then who was it?" Nya put on her creepy black helmet and turned to Zane, who felt uncomfortable because of the eerie yellow glow from the lenses. "You know, I could probably hunt down Lloyd's Golden Power with this."

"Could you _please_ not say that?" Cole groaned. "It sounds creepy."

"What did I say?" Nya asked, fidgeting with the buttons by the side of her helmet.

"That you were going to _hunt_ Lloyd down." Cole shuddered. "I know you were stuck with the Overlord for a while, but…"

Nya nodded and pulled a dress Pixal got ready for her over her head.

She looked rather strange, with her eerie mask and the white dress with the blue flowers printed all over it. Jay would say she looked like she was going to kill the emperor, then go to a fancy tea party.

If Jay was there.

And in his right mind…

"Do you think that Kai would be okay if the Overlord were to be removed from his body?" Zane asked. "Or should we just…"

The conversation quieted down.

"I hope so," Nya said, "but I don't think there's much of him left over. I was telling the truth when I said that I hadn't seen him in years…"

Zane patted Nya on the shoulder. "It's going to be okay. Maybe Lloyd could use his Golden Power to get the Overlord out of Kai like he did with his father."

"So are we going to sit around here and do nothing, or are we going to go and help Lloyd?" Cole asked.

"The farmer has a tractor I repaired and upgraded," Pixal said. "We could use it as transportation."

 _I love that tractor,_ Zane thought to himself. _I would also love to see the Overlord's reaction when we come charging into the city on that thing._

* * *

 **Two ninjas walk into a bar... Let's hope the people in it are friendly. And look who's here! You know, of all the Elemental Masters other than the Ninjas, Neuro has to be my favourite.  
**

 **I wonder what this timeline's Lloyd thinks of this entire situation... If the Overlord manages to kill our Lloyd as well, there's going to be a lot of confusion in the Cursed Realm. And angry Morro. (One Green Ninja's bad enough, but _two?!_ )**

 **I feel sorry for Wu and Garmadon. One is having his arms chopped off, while the other one is helplessly watching.**

 **And Kai. Kai might be watching too.**


	26. Shoes and Tractors

_**Nya**_

The tractor looked like it belonged in a junkyard more than anything else, and after everybody was thrown off three times, Nya wished it _was_ in a junkyard.

Even Zane, who was driving, and very carefully too, fell off.

"So why couldn't we drive something else?" Cole asked, falling off as he spoke.

Zane stopped the tractor and allowed for Cole to get back on. "The tractor can move across any terrain without breaking down, slipping or getting stuck. It can carry up to 1000 tons and it has a function that allows it to fly."

When the tractor started up again, Pixal fell down and pulled Nya down with her.

Again, Zane stopped for them to get back on. "Please don't make it fly," Nya begged. Pixal nodded next to her.

"We still have some problems, though," Zane admitted. He fell off and jumped back on as fast as possible. "I don't think it likes being ridden."

Cole grabbed Pixal and both of them fell down again.

That was pretty much their entire drive.

Until the moth appeared.

It was a pretty one, with huge purple wings and red spots that looked like eyes.

As delicate as a butterfly, it fluttered over to Zane and sat on his face.

"Excuse me, could you please remove yourself from my face?" Zane asked.

Then the moth vanished into thin air right where it sat.

* * *

 _ **Jay**_

Jay didn't like the building the fake Nindroid dragged him in, but he didn't really have a choice.

There was a weird scent in the air that he didn't like, people were staring at him, which he also didn't like, and the fake Nindroid was trying to get some shoes from a man who was too busy gambling to pay any attention to him.

 _I wonder what he needs shoes for. He already has a pair of very nice shoes. Maybe he's going to try and squish this moth?_

The moth in question was large and purple, just like the other one that sat on his face and made him black out. It was walking around on top of Jay's table and the red eyes on its wings seemed to be staring at him.

When he gave it a questioning poke, it fluttered out of the door as if it was somehow offended at being touched.

 _What a weird guy, that one._

Jay could remember another person who was a weird guy. Someone in a pink apron and white Gi with a bird. And then he got mad when his Gi turned pink… and something about a robot… and a tree… and pixies…

He shook his head to try and get those weird thoughts out of his head. Maybe it was a dream he had a while ago and forgot about.

That was it. Just a weird, nonsensical dream he had.

"Come on, man, my buddy's been walking around in his slippers all day," the fake Nindroid told the gambling person. "I'll give you my wallet."

The gambling person just glared at the fake Nindroid and went back to his cards.

* * *

 _ **Jay (Flashback)**_

The Overlord was right.

There were some _very_ interesting side-effects when the machine was used on someone who wasn't possessed.

The first one was that the machine exploded rather violently when it couldn't find any foreign entity inside Jay's body after an eternity of torture and screaming. After the explosion, he had a monster headache that wouldn't go away and everything was spinning endlessly. The Overlord mocked him, telling him that the machine didn't work, so Jay threw up on his shoes and passed out in his room after locking the door behind him.

When he woke up, he wondered why the others didn't come to help while he was strapped to that machine.

Jay screamed while he was being tortured.

The evidence? His throat was raw from the screaming. His mouth was dry. And when he looked in the mirror he screamed again.

The stranger in front of him looked like a zombie.

A zombie wearing his torn clothes and staring back at him with tired, dull blue eyes, puffy from crying and almost hollow, as if there was nobody to look out of them.

His friends heard him scream, but they didn't do anything.

Jay ran his fingers through his hair and when he looked down at his hands, he found them stained with fresh blood.

 _I hate them. Why didn't they come?! Nobody's_ that _deaf!_

The mirror shattered into a million pieces the moment it made contact with his fist.

Then he fell down on the hardwood floor of his room, either crying or laughing or screaming.

He wasn't sure which.

 _Oh wow, I'm throwing a tantrum on shards of broken glass, how funny._

The strange noises that came out of his throat turned into frantic giggles as blood came out of his mouth and ran into his hands as he tried to silence himself. He could just imagine the others' faces if they saw him like that, it would be hilarious.

 _I'm like a blood fountain, ha ha ha! Crap, I need painkillers..._

* * *

 **Well, here's Jay poking a moth, and also, Zane's tractor. Why the heck does he like it so much if people fall off it all the time?!  
**

 **I'm willing to bet that Jay's room looked like someone was murdered in it by the time he might or might not have run away. This flashback takes place when Jay starts that project he locks himself in his room for days.**


	27. The Abandoned Room

_**Cole**_

Zane started driving in the wrong direction like a crazed person, and Cole had some serious doubts that he would stop for anyone who fell off this time.

Cole was holding on to Zane's chair with an iron grip, while everybody else held on to Cole, except for Zane, who was holding on to the steering wheel of the tractor with both hands and didn't pay attention to anyone or anything else.

"Zane! Slow down!" Pixal yelled. "We're going to fall!"

Zane didn't seem to hear her.

In fact, the speed just picked up.

"Zane! I can't hold on much longer!" Cole cried out. "You're going too fast!"

Nya's grip was hurting Cole's foot and Pixal was strangling him as not to get left behind.

"I upgraded the tractor myself!" Pixal screamed proudly as she accidently kicked Nya in the face.

"Ow!"

"Zane! Slow down!" Cole wanted to get a better hold on Zane's chair, but he was struggling.

Everyone was screaming at Zane to slow down. Cole was losing his grip and if _that_ happened, both Nya and Pixal would be lost to the Nindroid as well.

 _I can't hold on much longer!_

Finally, Zane stopped the tractor.

He didn't give any warning that he was about to stop, he just slammed the brakes and caused all four of them, including himself, to go flying through the air and land in a pile. In front of them, surrounded by dark clouds and ominous lightning, was the old school where they taught, once upon a time.

A gigantic purple moth with red eyes fluttered out from under the pile.

"What happened? How did we get here?" Zane's disorientated voice asked from under the pile. "Is that my leg or yours?"

"Ow!" There was a stabbing feeling in Cole's leg. "What was that?!"

"Sorry, I thought it was mine. I think you are bleeding," Zane said. "I think I saw a First-Aid-Kit last time Pixal and I were here, maybe we should see how bad your leg is and give it the proper care."

* * *

 _ **Lloyd**_

While Lloyd recognized Ronin the moment he walked into the bar, he had to remind himself that this wasn't the same Ronin from back in his timeline and would sell him to the Overlord for a corn chip.

He offered the thief his entire wallet for his shoes (he and Jay wore the same size shoes), but he just glared at Lloyd with hateful green eyes.

Lloyd had to give up when Jay let out an ear-splitting shriek and something crashed by their table.

Two men, one with white streaks in his otherwise grey hair, and the other with dark grey hair, were trying to have a conversation with Jay, but his friend didn't like it and had thrown his bowl of breadsticks at one of them, causing the shattering sound that had caught Lloyd's attention and leaving twelve fresh, uneaten breadsticks on the floor.

Lloyd ran on over to help Jay as fast as he could.

The man with the white streaks in his hair chuckled at Jay. "You got one too?"

 _Wait… Is that_ Neuro _?! Where did_ he _come from?!_

"You know me?" Neuro asked, surprised. "I don't think I ever met you, Lloyd."

Jay let out another shriek. "No! No! No!" The Blue Ninja started hyperventilating and turning blue. "Can't be! Can't be! Watched!"

Lloyd ran over to try and calm Jay down, but he was slapped in the face and his friend passed out with another shriek of horror, not unlike the shrieks Jay let out when he, his father and Dareth went to rescue him and he was still in the glass tube.

* * *

 _ **Nya**_

Jay's bedroom was locked, and it's been locked ever since he left that day.

Zane told Nya that he and Pixal couldn't find the key, no matter where they looked, and that they wanted to respect Jay's privacy by not kicking the door down.

"The Overlord paid special attention to Jay for a reason," Nya argued. "He never told anyone what it was, but he wanted Jay to forget _something_ and whatever's in his room might give us a clue!"

Zane blinked at her and kicked the door down.

One the other side of the door was a scene from a horror movie.

Seven years of dust and cobwebs. A broken mirror. Shards of glass spread out over the floor. Red stains on the floor and the wall and the furniture. Books were strewn all over the floor. All of Jay's photos were torn into confetti and the framed they were in were broken all over the floor.

It was impossible to tell which of the bits of glass were from the mirror, and which were from the frames.

Nya scanned the stains with her helmet.

It was blood.

Seven-year-old, dried-up, blood. Zane seemed just as horrified as Nya.

"Whose blood is it?" he asked once Nya told him what exactly the stains were. "Is it Jay, or just…"

"I don't know, all my scans are telling me is that it's human." Nya removed her helmet and looked around.

"That photo's still relatively unharmed." The photo Zane was talking about was one of the old gang beck before the Overlord took over. It was sitting on Jay's old desk and was of Kai and Jay where they were hanging out on the Destiny's Bounty. The glass was cracked and someone took a marker and blacked out Kai's face over the glass, but the other person in the photo could only be her brother.

Nya put the framed photo in her bag.

It might be the last photo of her brother and Jay taken before the Overlord took them away.

She wasn't about to leave it behind.

* * *

 **Aww, Nya found a photo of her brother and Jay!  
**

 **And I guess Jay just realized who the blond fake Nindroid is :/**

 **Thanks for the reviews!  
**


	28. 101 Uses For Cheese

_**Ash**_

The guy in the pyjamas freaked out the moment Neuro called the kid he was talking to "Lloyd".

He screamed himself blue, then he fainted.

So Ash, out of the goodness of his heart, helped Neuro and Lloyd take the pyjama-guy to their place.

Their "place" being Neuro's grey caravan and Ash's old car that pulled it.

The old car was mostly used for pulling the caravan, but the only reason Ash didn't try to get rid of it was because he didn't want to pull the caravan himself.

One of the car's wheels would come spinning off for no good reason every two miles, there was only one door left of the original four and only two of the car's gears worked, neither of which was the reverse. And then there was the little problem with the fact that neither of the brakes worked and that if it stalled, it would stop and take forever to start again.

Neuro put the unconscious pyjama-guy in the caravan, where the bed was, and started tending to his patient.

Lloyd seemed worried about his friend, but there was something off.

 _Why did that guy freak out just because Neuro mentioned his buddy's name? There's a story there…_

"You get in the car, I'm driving us to the next Safe Point," Ash hissed to the teenager. Lloyd climbed in the back of the car, where the only door was, but Ash shook his head. "Oh no, you don't. You're sitting where I can keep an eye on you."

 _I don't trust this kid._

"But there's no door," the teenager complained. "I might fall out!"

Ash folded his arms. "Kid, if you fall out, you could easily just get back in. The fastest she goes is twenty miles an hour."

"Promise?" the kid asked, getting in the passenger seat next to Ash.

"If I go over, the engine falls out of the exhaust and Neuro and I have to pick up the pieces behind her." The kid put on the safety belt, which promptly came off and was rendered useless. "Look, if you're so worried about falling out, just hold on to the seat. I can't guarantee that it's going to stay attached, but at least you'll have something to sit on if you fall out."

The car started with a loud hiss and a groan. A thought just occurred to Ash.

"So didn't your parents ever tell you not to get in a stranger's car? People get murdered like that."

* * *

 _ **Garmadon**_

After the Overlord left with Wu, Garmadon was sure that he was going to pass out.

The Overlord cauterized him where his arms were cut off so he wouldn't bleed out (the Overlord told him that he wanted him to suffer) and left him behind in a cell, all alone, except for the pale blue moths that seemed very interested in him and crawled all over him.

As they crawled around in his hair, probably thinking that he was some kind of weird flower, he started feeling better and the loss of his arms didn't seem to bother him as much anymore. They were likely some of those magic moths Lloyd was so worried about, but they didn't seem very harmful.

"You guys aren't dangerous, are you?" Garmadon asked the moths as they were somehow repairing and cleaning his dirty and torn clothes. They didn't answer him, but one _did_ almost crawl into his mouth when he spoke. Thankfully he closed his mouth before it could happen, so the little bug couldn't get inside.

He had a feeling that bad things would happen if he were to accidently eat one of the moths.

They fluttered off, out of the cell, leaving Garmadon alone yet again.

 _Goodbye, little friends._

With that, Garmadon finally passed out.

* * *

 _ **Dareth**_

When Dareth arrived at the base, he was greeted by Ed and Edna, both of them freaking out because of the obvious lack of Jay, Garmadon and Lloyd.

"It's okay, guys," Dareth told the panicking Walkers. "We got Jay out, it's just that we found Zane, who decided that it would be better if Jay stays with him and Pixal for a while."

"What did Jay say?" Ed asked.

"Is he okay?" Edna asked.

"Look, this isn't really for anyone to be sure of just yet," Dareth told the couple in front of him. "We'll discuss this at our next meeting, just be patient, okay?"

The couple nodded and ran off.

 _I hope the others are okay, wherever they are. I'd hate for them to get hurt._

* * *

 ** _Cole_**

When Nya and Zane returned from checking out Jay's room, Nya was holding something and looking heartbroken, while Zane was trying to comfort her.

"It's okay," Zane told her, "we'll get _both_ of them back."

 _Well, something's obviously wrong._

"What's wrong?" Cole asked, struggling to stand up with his injured leg. "Did something happen?"

"His entire room is destroyed," Zane said. "There is blood everywhere, and there was only one photo left unharmed in the entire room."

Nya was emotionlessly staring at the framed photograph in her hands. "This is the only one that isn't destroyed. But why?"

The framed photo was turned so Cole could see Jay grinning happily with his arm around Kai's blacked-out face and Nya opened the back.

"There's a disk on the back!" Nya gasped. "Look!"

Cole grabbed the picture frame and stared at the back.

Sure enough, there was a disk back there with **"101 Used For Cheese"** written on it with Jay's messy handwriting.

* * *

 **Poor Ed and Edna, not knowing if Jay is okay or not... But hey. at least Garmadon made some new friends.**

 **Ash's car is based off of all the cars we ever owned, except ours at least had all their doors and didn't loose its one wheel every now and then.**

 **So each type of moth has a different thing they do. Blue: Makes people feel better (emotionally) and fixes their clothes.**


	29. Never Knew

_**Jay (Flashback)**_

He wasn't sure exactly when he passed out, but by the time he woke up, it was the next evening.

Jay was confused at first, wondering where all the blood was coming from, when he remembered the previous day's events. Sitting up, he coughed up some more blood.

 _Dammit._

"Jay?" Cole's voice asked, knocking on his door. "Are you okay? I heard you crying last night, and your door was locked so…"

 _They were here. They were here, they could hear me, and they still didn't come. They didn't come. They didn't come. The Overlord… He got to them. He got to them somehow. I can't leave. I have to…_

"I'm okay!" Jay said, falsely cheerful as he spoke. "I just stubbed my pinkie toe!"

Cole chuckled and Jay could hear his footsteps going away.

 _Can't trust them. Overlord got to them._ _Can't trust them. Overlord got to them._ _Can't trust them. Overlord got to them._ _Can't trust them. Overlord got to them. Can't trust them…_

His hands shook as he tried to get up, but he cut himself on a piece of the broken mirror along the way.

More blood started dripping on the floor as he slowly walked on over to his bed.

 _Maybe I could_

Jay ran over to his closet, where he kept most of his junk. All he needed was a video camera, a disk and a computer.

Physically, it was easy to take apart his failed inventions to build the camera and the computer, but mentally, it was hurting him. There was a story behind every failed invention. The one he was taking apart, crying as he did so, was supposed to be a machine to turn people invisible, but when he tested it (on a reluctant Zane), it turned the Nindroid's head invisible and freaked Pixal out when he arrived for their date. It took a week to wear off and was really disorientating when they went out on missions that week.

 _Good memories._

The disk, however, was an easier thing to mess with, even though he'd never wish someone to watch something _that_ cringewothy ever. Nobody, not even his worst enemy, deserved something that horrible.

 _Death by second hand embarrassment… Oh well, time to get to work._

* * *

 _ **Moth Man**_

Whenever he got close, she would disappear into the shadows, giggling like she would way back when.

As a result, he would turn himself into a swarm of silver moths and look for her yet again.

And she would run off, giggling again.

She was like him; she didn't belong to Ninjago.

Both of them belonged in an entirely other realm, where thousands of others just like them would play their games and mess with the lives of those in the Mortal Realms.

 _She_ could come and go as she pleased, but he was banished after a trick of his had gone too far. He was stripped of the ability to return, and they made certain that he could never use the Realm Crystal, so he was stuck in this pitiful mortal realm until he "learned his lesson".

Watching her dance in the moonlight, he wondered if the others were sincere about him needing to learn a lesson, or if they were just mad that they hadn't thought of the trick first.

After all, he knew his kind almost as well as he knew his moths, and honestly, he was amazed at some of the tricks that _didn't_ get punished by the others.

She was one of the better ones. And even then, she would come to play tricks in Ninjago. Even the better ones would do some pretty evil things, just for their own amusement.

When he finally caught her, it was only because she was distracted by a puddle of water and was splashing around in it, giggling as she did so in her bare feet.

She didn't stay, just like all of the other times he caught her.

She simply giggled some more and went back home, a place he would never see again, no matter what he did.

 _I just wanted to ask her for help this time…_

* * *

 _ **Jay**_

Something was terribly wrong.

The fake Nindroid was Lloyd, but _that_ couldn't be right, because he saw the Overlord killing him and pretending to be Kai at the same time.

After the Overlord went away, he spent _hours_ trying to wake his friend up, only to find that he had no more pulse and was, in fact, never waking up.

He sat up very suddenly and let out a sob, causing the man who was sitting in the chair next to him to let out a startled scream and fall out of his seat and land on the wooden floor.

When the Overlord later went looking for Lloyd's body, hoping to extract the Golden Power from him, there was no corpse to be found where it was left. Jay felt that his friend deserved a burial, and he'd be dammed if he didn't give it to him.

He replaced Lloyd's bloodied Gi with his own.

 _He never knew…_

He dug the hole under that tree with his bare hands.

 _He never knew…_

He carefully put Lloyd in the hole with all the best flowers he could find in the area.

 _He never knew…_

He covered the hole again and just to be safe, planted a patch of wildflowers and grass over the grave, so it would look just like any other spot in the area.

 _He never knew…_

After that, he stuck Lloyd's clothes in a random hole and stole a "Blue Ninja" costume from a costume shop nearby so he wouldn't have to go home in his boxers.

"He never even knew about Kai!"

* * *

 **I think the Moth Man is a little distracted by the Vanishing Lady(neither of which are their real names).  
**

 **Jay's freaking out in both the past and the present. I wonder if this timeline's Lloyd went to the Cursed Realm wearing Jay's Gi. Would be very confusing for him if he did.**

 **Happy Valentine's Day!**


	30. Kai Did It

_**Neuro**_

He must have triggered something while poking around in the kid identified as Jay Walker, because he just suddenly jumped up and screamed something about someone named Kai and started crying into his hands.

However, he wasn't sure if it was a good thing or not, because he was _literally_ just poking around in the dark, so he might have just ruined some kid's life and made things worse.

Jay seemed a little better, though, despite nearly causing Neuro to wet himself mere moments ago, and was helping him up from the floor.

"Are you okay?" Neuro asked, careful not to cause the boy to start screaming again. "Your friend is very worried about you."

"Lloyd?" Jay asked, looking and sounding confused.

Neuro nodded. "Yeah, him. He says that you were locked up ever since the Overlord took over and only recently got out."

When Jay didn't say anything else, the Master of Mind opened the door of his caravan and jogged to get in the car with Ash and Lloyd. It was easy, since the car wasn't going very fast.

"He's okay," Neuro told them. "Good news, he remembered who you are, Lloyd."

The kid's face lit up. "He did? What did he say?"

Neuro shrugged. "Well, when he woke up he screamed because someone didn't know something about some Kai person, and then when I told him that you were worried, he said your name. That's pretty much it."

"Maybe he knows what Nya was supposed to tell me!" Lloyd exclaimed, jumping out of the car and jumping in Neuro's caravan.

* * *

 _ **Lloyd**_

Jay stormed on over to Lloyd the moment he saw him, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him.

"It wasn't him!" Jay screamed, digging his fingernails into Lloyd's shoulders when he tried to escape. "Don't hurt Kai!"

"What makes you think I'm going to hurt Kai?!" Lloyd demanded. "What wasn't him?!"

Jay stopped shaking him. "It. Was. Not. Him."

"What wasn't him?" Lloyd struggled to get Jay's fingernails out of him. "Jay, what did Kai want Nya to tell me?"

"I buried you." Jay let go of Lloyd a little too suddenly, causing the younger ninja to drop to the ground with a loud thump. "I buried you!"

"What happened?" Lloyd asked, trying to use the nearby dresser to pull himself up, only to cause the many dainty things on top of it to come crashing down with him. "Ow. Jay, what are you talking about? What happened?"

"We have to get to the school." Jay helped Lloyd up. "It's at the school. It can explain."

"What's at the school?" Lloyd couldn't help but whisper.

"I watched." Jay paused for a moment. "I watched. He lied and said he was Kai, I thought he was Kai and you thought he was Kai and he wasn't Kai. He found out after I buried you."

"What?"

"The Overlord's possessing Kai."

* * *

 _ **Garmadon**_

The Overlord left him strapped to the torture device, abandoning him and laughing at the thought of him possibly escaping.

The Overlord hissed something about his general deserting him before running off to kill some puppies or something.

 _That_ was when the moths showed up again.

It appeared that the little blue moths brought some silvery little friends, but he wasn't sure if it was normal for two different species of moth to swarm together.

And form a human shape.

And for the human shape to turn into an actual human behind in a sky blue kimono embroidered with silver moths.

 _Great, now I'm hallucinating._

The other person had long black hair that was hanging loose down to his waist, delicate features that Chen's kabuki-girls would kill for and had dark brown eyes that seemed to be reading Garmadon like a book.

He had a feeling that the strange man thought himself above Garmadon, from the way he was staring at him, but the former dark lord was actually too _nervous_ to try and say anything to the man.

"How did you get in there, Garmadon?" the man asked airily. "Did you fall again?"

 _What kind of person_ is _this?!_

"Can you help me out of here?" Garmadon asked in a tiny voice which he hadn't used since he was a scared little boy. "Please?"

The man shrugged. "I guess. Want me to arm you while I'm at it?"

 _Was that a freaking PUN?! This guy breaks into the Overlord's tower and he makes_ puns _at me?!_

"You know what, kid?" The man smirked. "I'm going to do it anyway."

The man turned into a swarm of moths again and fluttered around Garmadon.

The straps that were holding him down came off.

The machine fell apart as soon as Garmadon stood up, and when the moths were done swarming around him, he found that the moths had, somehow, managed to build and attach a pair of mechanical arms for him. He didn't even notice that they were doing anything…

 _How did they do that? How did they do that?!_

The moths merged into the strange man again before Garmadon could even completely react.

"You should go to your son's old school." The man gave Gamradon a set of "standard" clothes for the city and disappeared.

"They're waiting for you."

* * *

 **So now, along with the baby mynah, we also have an injured dove (a wounded wing) here.  
**

 **The baby does not love the dove very much.** **Advice about bird 2 (other than putting it down) will be appreciated.**

 **Hurray! Jay's speaking in full sentences again! And the Moth Man freed Garmadon!**

 **And Jay told Lloyd about Kai... But does he _believe_ it?  
**


	31. Casu Marzu

_**Jay**_

The two others were called Ash and Neuro, as the possible Lloyd told him, and they drove the thing that was currently being scraped away.

Ash seemed sad about the scraping, telling Neuro how the car belonged to his least favourite uncle and was going to be given to his least favourite family member when _he_ died and so on.

When Jay asked him _why_ , Ash glared at him and tried to put the junk back together.

"I could summon my dragon and fly us to the school," possibly Lloyd suggested. "I mean, sorry about your car, but Jay has to show me something over there and I don't think we have a lot of time."

"She was in my family for so long…" Ash sobbed. "AND YOU TWO WERE TOO HEAVEY FOR HER!"

"Your thing was crap," Jay said. It was obvious, after all.

"We have to get to the safe point before nightfall," Neuro said quietly. "We can't stay here."

"So should I summon my dragon?" possibly Lloyd asked. "I mean, it glows and stuff, and we have to go to the school first, but it's fast. Faster than a car, at least."

 _Wait, isn't the dragon in the Dragon World? It would be very annoyed if it just gets summoned just to carry people to a school. I know_ I _would be annoyed._

"Isn't it tired?" Jay asked, staring at possibly Lloyd.

"No, it's okay," possibly Lloyd told Jay. "Don't worry."

He didn't remember how he figured out that the Overlord was possessing Kai, but he remembered that there was a lot of staring involved. Maybe if he stared at possibly Lloyd long enough, he'd find out if this person really _was_ his friend.

* * *

 _ **Lloyd**_

He wasn't sure if his dragon would be able to carry himself, Jay, Neuro and Ash all at the same, but somehow it was managed.

Before they took off, Neuro allowed Jay to borrow some of Ash's grey clothes, which the Blue Ninja seemed to appreciate. It seemed that the older boy realised what clothes were for, but some of the instructions appeared to have gotten messed up, because he didn't take off his pyjamas, which he was wearing over his snow-white prison jumpsuit, which he apparently refused to let the pixies (most likely Pixal) take from him, and he was wearing his borrowed clothes inside out (pants), backwards (T-shirt) or both (the jacket).

His shoes and socks were messed up too.

His left sock reached all the way up to his knee and was mint green with bright yellow polka-dots, while the other one was neon pink and only came to his ankle, which would have gone unnoticed, if only he didn't choose to wear two right-foot sandals for some reason.

Lloyd _tried_ to convince Jay to fix his shoes, but he got a boot thrown at him at the mere mention of Jay possibly doing this wrong.

Well, as long as there's nobody else at the school, Lloyd didn't have to worry about fixing Jay's outfit just yet.

* * *

 _ **Zane**_

They have been watching the home movie for almost an hour now, and so far it was discovered that not only did a preteen Jay make a video during his vacation where he would sample more than one hundred and one different kinds of cheese and review them, but also that he was far less picky about what he ate back when he was younger.

Some of those cheeses were extremely fancy, and Zane had doubts that Jay had enough money at the time to purchase them himself.

"This is called Casu Marzu," the preteen Jay said cheerfully, while holding some strange white cheese in a bag that had liquid coming out of it. "It's pretty gross. Its name _literally_ means "rotten cheese", but people still eat it. I mean, it's _so_ gross, it's illegal in some parts of Ninjago. Not in this part, though!"

"I wonder where he got that from." Cole shifted next to Zane. "I never heard of cheese being illegal. I wonder why…"

While Zane knew the names of many different kinds of food, he didn't know all of them, and he was wondering the same thing.

"Now, the reason it's illegal is because people got sick of it," preteen Jay told the camera, "but I'm going to get rid of the…"

Before preteen Jay could say what he was going to get rid of, though, the screen turned blue, showed an image of the number five for a second, and returned to preteen Jay voicelessly talking about cheese for a good ten minutes.

Zane had a theory.

Before anyone could react, Zane grabbed the remote and pressed the number five, apparently changing the channel.

To a slightly older Jay knitting something.

He seemed really invested in his knitting.

 _He must have done something to his old home movies so the Overlord wouldn't be able to find whatever he put on this._

The others seemed to have this realization as well.

"He must have made this in case the Overlord captured him," Nya gasped. "Whatever the Overlord wanted gone is still on here!"

"What did the Overlord want gone?" a familiar voice asked from behind the four on the couch.

When they turned around, they found Garmadon standing there, wearing a black leather jacket and a pair of gloves.

He didn't have Lloyd with him.

* * *

 **Oh no! Garmadon doesn't have Lloyd with him! Wherever could he be?!  
**

 **Jay seems to be doing a little better, though.**


	32. Home Movies

_**Lloyd**_

"So what do you remember?" Lloyd asked Jay as they got closer and closer to the school.

Jay shifted behind Lloyd. "Um…"

"I mean, do you remember anything from before the Overlord had you?" Lloyd asked, trying to find out how much Jay could remember. "Like maybe…"

"Kai was my friend." Jay struggled to get himself comfortable. "He's still there."

"What about Cole and Zane?"

"Who?" Jay sounded as if he'd never heard those names before in his life.

"Pixal?"

"No." Jay sounded confused. "Why?"

"What about Nya?"

"General X." Lloyd could feel Jay trying to get off the dragon as they got closer to the ground, but they weren't close enough for it to be safe.

Thankfully, Neuro stopped him before he could get away.

"How much do you remember about her?" Lloyd asked, trying to distract Jay from trying to escape. "You know her name. What else?"

"She doesn't like me."

 _That's not true._

"What makes you say that?" Lloyd asked as Neuro and Ash hopped off the dragon. "I mean, she had a Chip. She couldn't control what she did."

"She ran away back at the house…"

* * *

 _ **Garmadon**_

The preteen version of Jay on the television stopped knitting as soon as Pixal claimed to have noticed something and took the remote, pressing the number nine.

It seemed to change the channel to a young teenage Jay who appeared to be sleeping and cuddling the camera.

Maybe he accidentally turned it on when he started cuddling with it, something he was told the Blue Ninja does.

"It gets more and more subtle each time," Pixal told Garmadon. "Say something if you notice a pattern or…"

"There!" Cole yelled out, interrupting Pixal. "He's doing something!"

"What?!" Nya sat up like a prairie dog. "What's he doing?!"

"He moved his hand! Two fingers!" Cole pointed at the TV excitedly.

"It could also be the old roman numeral for five," Zane warned.

"What happens when we put in the wrong number?" Garmadon asked, looking at the four younger people.

"We do not know," Pixal answered.

"It starts over," a familiar voice said from behind them.

When Garmadon turned around, along with the others, he found Jay standing there, still wearing his pyjamas from when he went missing the previous day, along with Lloyd.

A pair or right-foot sandals were on his feet, though, along with a pair of mismatched socks.

"Jay!" Cole got up and tackled his friend in a sudden bear-hug. "You're okay!"

* * *

 _ **Overlord**_

Garmadon was gone… somehow.

He checked the security feeds, but all he got was the man standing up with a pair of mysteriously acquired mechanical arms, grab a jacket and walk out of there.

" _ **He could not have just**_ **walked** _ **out of here!"**_ the Overlord growled to Cryptor when he came to tell him what happened. _**"Find him!"**_

Cryptor saluted him and ran off.

" _ **Wu!"**_ The former sensei appeared. _**"Hunt. Him. Down."**_

Wu left the building at the speed of light.

 _ **Where's General X when I need her? It seems like everything's going wrong these days! What's next?!**_

The Overlord groaned and got in his own armour. None of his underlings seemed to be doing a very good job of keeping the prisoners in line lately and those who _did_ were either somehow freed from his power or dead.

 _ **If you want a job done well, you have to do it yourself.**_

 _Jackass._

* * *

 _ **Cole**_

Obviously, tackle-hugging his friend who was tortured so hard for seven years that he could barely even remember his own name was a bad idea, but he wasn't thinking and received a scream in the ear and a bite on the shoulder for forgetting that it was a bad idea. It was similar to when he tried to convince himself that Jay was faking everything to get attention, but this time, at least, he realised that he should probably let go before things get too bad.

Jay's screams seems to have attracted the attention of three other people, as Cole could hear people coming in from different directions.

 _Of course. He couldn't have come all the way here_ alone _._

Lloyd appeared first, which was a good thing, because he told the five of them about the two extra people who tagged along and if one of the two strangers appeared instead of the young Green Ninja, they might have attacked each other.

While they were talking, Jay got the remote from Pixal and pressed in the number eight, changing the channel to a younger version of the Blue Ninja, possibly about fourteen, working on a pair of mechanical wings.

 _This was right before he met Sensei!_

Cole actually _wanted_ to watch this one, as did Nya, judging by her curious expression, but the present Jay pressed another number without even waiting for something interesting to happen. The next channel showed Jay and Kai sparring at the old monastery, with Kai kicking Jay in the chest, sending him flying into a wall before it turned into a far more present Jay sitting at his table, back when they were all still teachers.

Again, it changed.

This time, it was in Jay's room.

There was a lot of blood, fresh on all of the places where Cole saw the old stains in the room, the mirror was shattered, but that was all that was like it was when Cole went to look at Jay's room. Someone must have destroyed the photos _after_ the video was made.

* * *

 **My baby bird's learning to eat by himself and the dove hisses at me, so I think it might be a snake in disguise.  
**

 **I wonder who destroyed Jay's room like that...**


	33. Reunited

_**Vanishing Lady**_

It was like he was… _herding_ her somewhere.

How _dare_ he! Chasing her around, forcing her to go where _he_ wanted her to go!

Furious with him, she made herself ready to vanish and return home in a flash of colourful words, only to see the strange little mortal who was possessed by what she would only refer to as the evil ball of gas heading towards the other strange little mortal's school building that has been abandoned until very recently.

Just like her mate, she was unseen by all except those she allowed to see her, appearing as a breeze to any mortal, just like her mate.

There was no risk of her being seen or heard by the ball of gas, so she danced after him, singing to herself.

Her mate fluttered down to walk beside her, much like when they were still courting, so they could sing and dance together.

Him in his silver kimono, her in her white dress.

"You are ridiculous," he told her all of a sudden, causing her to refrain from blowing a raspberry at the back of the ignorant ball of gas's head.

"Whatever do you mean?" she asked, unable to keep the teasing tone out of her voice as she spoke.

"I mean all of this." He twirled around on his toes, as if that would emphasise his point. "You had something to do with that man's time machine, didn't you?"

Her smile widened. "What made you think _that_?"

The night got darker as did her mate's clothing. "If you take this to the elders, they're going to destroy Ninjago."

She shrugged. "Not my problem. I'm just trying to get you home."

Was it just her, or were the moths making up the form of her mate turning black?

"You see, the elders won't let one of us die, no matter how hard they were banished," she explained, "so if they destroy this place, they're going to _have_ to come and get you."

"So you are willing to sacrifice billions of innocent mortals for a single person?" He took her hand in his own. "That's so romantic. But don't, okay? Just help me get this guy to the old school. His friends want to help him."

"Aw, how sweet," she squeaked. "You want to scare the little mortals before the elders destroy Ninjago! Of _course_ I'll help you!"

* * *

 _ **Overlord**_

He had the strangest feeling that he was being followed, but whenever he looked behind him, there was nothing.

Yet, he still had the strangest feeling that he was being mocked by something he couldn't see.

Or someone.

He was at the front door of Wu's school, when he could _swear_ he heard someone giggling. Again, there was nothing behind him.

" _ **Whoever's making that infernal sound, stop it or I'll destroy you!"**_ the Overlord roared.

The giggling turned into laughter. It seemed like whoever was laughing was standing right next to him, close enough to touch him, but they were still invisible.

 _Maybe you're just crazy._

Ah yes, he forgot about his host, back for some final displeased grumbling with that tired little tone that he used.

Rolling his eyes, the Overlord opened the door and walked in as if he owned the place.

The place was disturbed. As was the giggling he could hear behind him.

* * *

 _ **Pixal**_

The Jay on the television seemed a lot more similar to the Jay staring at the screen with a confused look.

But… the one on the television seemed much more chatty than the one sitting on the floor, like a toddler with no knowledge of how televisions worked.

"That's me," Jay gasped, sounding excited as the bloodied version of him on the screen continued to apologize for making them watch all of those old home movies.

"Now," the Jay on the television said in a serious tone of voice, "if the person or persons watching this is one of my fellow ninjas, I'm sorry if I freak out on you. Or maybe _have_ freaked out on you. You see, as soon as I realised that the Overlord was possessing Kai, I built a machine to get him out of his body. Don't bother looking for the blueprints, I memorized them."

 _That's that the Overlord wanted him to forget…_

"Why didn't he tell one of us?!" Cole asked, furious. "We could have _helped_! We could've stopped the Overlord from capturing him!"

"Now, I bet you're wondering why I never told anyone." The televised version of Jay paused momentarily to cough up something that looked suspiciously like blood. "It's because Kai's still in there, and you finding this disk is proof of that. Everybody was still so upset about Lloyd's death, if I told them who was responsible for it, Kai would be killed too. And before I found out…"

The version of Jay with them watched in amazement as the one in the television coughed up some more blood.

The person on the television didn't say what happened before he found out that the Overlord was possessing Kai. Instead, he was just staring at something in front of him in both horror and shock.

After a few seconds, though, it seemed as if he forgot all about it and turned his attention back to the camera. "When the Overlord found out that I built a machine to get him out of Kai, he decided to strap me to it and use it on me, which didn't end well, obviously."

"Okay," the version of Jay who wasn't on the television said in a quiet voice.

"Listen, guys, again, I'm sorry for making you watch this. And Zane… If you're watching this, I'm sorry for taking apart your falcon, I'm going to try and make it up to you. Good luck, guys."

The screen went black, and this time, there was nothing left to watch.

Pixal was confused about Jay's apology for taking apart Zane's falcon, though, as the bird was one of the few things that was unharmed from the Overlord's attacks.

Not even a feather was missing, and she knew, because she and Zane had, for some inexplicable reason, counted them one day when they were bored.

Jay turned around to look at the group on the couch, but instead of speaking, as Pixal had hoped he would, he let out a shriek.

* * *

 **Looks like the Vanishing Lady and the Moth Man finally reunited! Yay! But maybe it's not a good thing...  
**

 **Why oh why did Jay shriek, and why did he say he took apart Zane's falcon when it's _clearly_ unharmed?**

 **Also, this has been bothering me for a while: WTF is Lloyd's dragon's name?**


	34. Hole in the Wall

_**Zane**_

Jay's sudden shriek alerted everybody to the Overlord, standing behind the couch, sword drawn and ready to attack.

 _The Overlord._

Ash vanished in a puff of grey smoke, reappearing above the person the Overlord was possessing and jumping at him.

The others were momentarily surprised at the stranger's sudden revelation of powers, but Nya got over it first and tried to strangle the Overlord, who didn't react very well and threw both the Samurai and the stranger through the wall, leaving behind a Nya-and-Ash-shaped hole.

Ash was twitching, possibly from adrenaline, and there was fresh blood coming out of his skull, but Nya, who broke his fall, wasn't moving at all. Neither one of them seemed very conscious.

" _ **I should have killed you as soon as I realised that you were there,"**_ the Overlord hissed, walking towards Jay, who was cowering in fear. _**"I didn't even**_ **need** _ **a power source that much. All you ever had to do was give me the blueprints and I would have let you go. I would have let all of you go."**_

The only reason Jay wasn't killed by the Overlord was because the Pixal got her hands on the TV-remote and threw it at the monster.

"Ow!" That was Kai's voice. The darkness seemed to sink into his own skin, revealing Kai.

Not that it was a surprise, since Nya already told them, but it was still very upsetting to see their friend like that.

It just made the fact that the Overlord possessed his friend more real, and the creature inhabiting Kai's body became far more horrifying with the knowledge that it might have forced Kai to helplessly watch as his own hands killed one of his best friends.

 _It is entirely possible that our version of Lloyd never even knew that the Overlord possessed Kai when he killed him._

Then, everything happened at once.

* * *

 _ **Jay (Flashback)**_

Back when Jay was younger, he tended to steal cheese from fancy cheese shops and managed to never get caught, not even by his parents.

Now, several years later, Jay had restarted his stealing habit and took pretty much every electrical device in the school, including Zane's falcon and excluding Zane, taking all of them apart to create a makeshift camera and computer to quickly record his message for somebody who might help.

His hands were still shaking. Maybe it was because he was nervious, or maybe it was a side-effect of something meant to exorsise the Overlord being used on someone who _wasn't_ possessed, like him coughing up blood for six days straight.

And the fact that it felt like he was being electrocuted from the inside ever since that machine was turned on. Like… like… like his element was trapped, somehow, unable to escape and angry because of it.

His element seemed to be taking out its anger on him because of it.

 _Okay,_ _this_ _isn't_ _the_ _ideal_ _time_ _to_ _worry_ _about_ _your_ _lightning._ _The_ _others_ _are_ _depending_ _on_ _you._ _You_ _mess_ _this_ _up,_ _they'll_ _never_ _get_ _away_ _from_ _the_ _Overlord._ _Kai_ _dies._ _We're_ _going_ _to_ _figure_ _out_ _how_ _to_ _fix_ _this_ _after_ _the Overlord's gone._

Jay felt bad about the falcon, though.

* * *

 _ **Lloyd**_

His father grabbed the Overlord posing as Kai from behind right before he the chance to kill.

Someone, possibly Neuro, fled through the hole in the wall, where Ash and Nya were lying in an unconscious heap.

Cole and Zane hurried over to help Lloyd's father hold the Overlord back, Pixal ran to where Ash and Nya were to see if they were okay, and the Overlord managed to stab Zane right in the chest, causing him to shut down.

 _No!_

Lloyd shot a blast of Green Energy at the Overlord, knocking him out.

He landed right on top of Lloyd.

 _Nonononononononono!_

He couldn't help the sound that came out of his throat when he found Kai on top of his chest, unconscious, and recently stopped from killing him.

"Dad!" Lloyd wiggled to get himself out from under Kai's body. "Dad, help!"

His father ran over to remove the unconscious Master of Fire from Lloyd, but for some reason, he rolled off Lloyd himself, still unconscious and unresponsive.

Cole hurried over to lock Kai's body in the school's dungeon, enforced with Vengestone so there would be no unwanted fires.

"It's okay, Lloyd," Neuro's voice said in a calming tone. "We just have to get your friend to remember how to build that device of his, then we can get rid of the Overlord for good."

 _Wait, if he's still here, then who ran off?!_

* * *

 **I wonder if the Overlord would have let everyone go if Jay gave him the blueprints... Nah.  
**

 **Lloyd's freaking out, though, poor baby.**

 **And yikes, that was quite the fight! Ash, Nya and Zane are all out and who the heck ran off earlier?!**

 **Please enjoy!**


	35. Damages

_**Jay**_

Everybody else were either fighting, unconscious, or checking up on the people who were unconscious, so he took the chance to escape and find a place to hide.

He jumped over the two unconscious people and ran through the hole they made when the Overlord threw them at the wall.

Nya seemed pretty dead, but Ash was just too twitchy to be anything but alive.

He considered checking up on them to make sure that they were okay, but when Nya twitched, he just fled.

Possibly Lloyd told him that she didn't hate him, that the Overlord was controlling her somehow, but the microchip that was in her was removed at the farmhouse belonging to the two nice Ninndroids, the pixies and the one who talked to him while he was locked up.

He could remember some sort of positive feelings being directed at her before he was captured, before he was stuck being used as a living battery of some sort, and he knew that the Overlord made her come along because of those positive feelings, but he couldn't remember _what_ those feelings were.

Back at the farmhouse, Nya would either be quiet and sad whenever he arrived, or on her way out, quietly and sadly.

Jay didn't like it when she was like that. If she had a problem with him, she could just say so to his face instead of being so sad whenever she looked at him.

Sighing softly, he walked himself towards the room with the kicked-in door.

He wasn't sure who lived there, but it was a mess, with shards of glass and pieces of a broken mirror lying all over the floor, torn up photos lying like confetti all over the place and a box of tools, which he was actually looking for, hiding in the closet.

Along with a semi-destroyed periodic table poster, a blue V-neck sweater that he pulled on over his head and the shirt of a set of blue Gi that he put over the sweater after shaking the dust off and sneezing so loud, he was pretty sure that all of Ninjago could hear him, most of all everybody in the school.

Then, despite all of the excitement of the past few days, Jay combed his hair with an old comb he found next to the bed (hopefully the original owner of said comb wouldn't mind if he borrowed it) and crawled under the bed, where he curled up and went to sleep, unknowingly grabbing a stuffed teddy bear that someone was holding out for him.

* * *

 _ **Cole**_

Cole helped Pixal and Garmadon move Nya, Zane and Ash to the nurse's office before removing Zane's falcon from a compartment in his chest to see what Jay was talking about, seeing as Pixal confessed that she and Zane didn't find anything wrong with the falcon when they first got it back after rescuing Zane.

When Cole tilted his head, the falcon responded by tilting its head as well. When Cole wiggled his arms, the falcon wiggled its wings. And when Cole danced to see if the falcon would copy _that_ , Lloyd walked in and laughed through the tears at the strange sight in front of him.

Well, at least he helped _someone_ feel better.

"What _are_ you doing?!" Lloyd asked, wiping away the tears. "Why were you dancing for Zane's bird?!"

Cole couldn't help but turn pink from embarrassment.

 _Was_ _this_ _what_ _Jay_ _felt_ _like_ _when_ _we_ _laughed_ _at_ _him?_

"I was wondering what Jay meant when he said that he took apart the bird. Pixal said that there isn't even a _feather_ missing from it, so maybe he coded the falcon like he did with that DVD." Cole jumped. The falcon tilted its head at him as if it hadn't known that Cole could jump. "So far, it doesn't do anything interesting, it just copied my moves until you came in."

"Maybe it needs a password?" Lloyd asked. "Like… What would Jay put as a password?"

"Maybe his birthday?"

"Or maybe something he put on the video!" Lloyd exclaimed, clasping his hands together. "He put hints on the disk! Maybe it was part of the first clip!"

 _No, he wouldn't put it on the first clip, not if he thought that the Overlord might get his hands on it…_

"Do _you_ know the password?" Cole asked the falcon sarcasticly. "What about... Cheese?"

The falcon blinked at him, then it screeched angrily.

 _Okay, so it didn't like_ that _…_

Jay's voice spoke from the falcon, nearly giving Cole a heart-attack and causing Lloyd to let out a sharp scream. "Congratulations, you did it! You figured out the password!"

* * *

 _ **Pixal**_

Pixal would repair Zane later.

First, she had to make sure that Nya and Ash were okay. Unlike her and Zane, Nya and Ash were made of flesh and blood and would die without immediate medical assistance.

She had to cut off some bits and pieces of Nya's hair to wash away the blood and see the injuries on her scalp more clearly, so she could see if there were stiches needed and put them in more easily.

Sure, Nya might look like she got a haircut from a two year-old with a pair of safety scissors, but Pixal would rather have the samurai be alive with an ugly haircut than dead with nice hair.

There were several old battle-scars on Nya's body, mostly from battles for the Overlord.

Ash wasn't _nearly_ as scarred, despite the Master of Smoke getting into a lot more fights than he was supposed to (at least, according to Neuro).

But then again, Ash wasn't turned into a general for the Overlord.

 _It's a good thing Nya was there to break Ash's fall, or else he would have died._

Pixal then suddenly remembered that she hadn't checked either of them for broken bones.

 _Nya: Three broken ribs, broken arm and a cracked collarbone. Ash: Bruised spine. Both are very lucky they're not dead._

 _Zane: Several wires are cut, in need of replacement. Vocal switch: Damaged. Memory ports: Damaged. Strange black moth: Not supposed to be in there. Shoo, moth._

* * *

 **The dove is doing much better these days, for those who were wondering. We're going to see if it can fly tomorrow. The baby mynah is getting very big now and is going through a stage where he keeps pecking my head, so guess where I put a pillowcase?**

 **Now, back to the fic: There's a ninja under Jay's bed, a message in Zane's falcon, stitches in Kai's sister and a moth in Zane's chest. Anything I forgot?**

 **Let's just hope that everybody's going to be okay after this.**


	36. The Blueprints: Part 1

_**Lloyd**_

The reprogrammed falcon creepily used Jay's voice to answer all of their questions.

Lloyd, his father and Neuro were all crowded around in the kitchen with Cole, listening to Jay's voice coming from the falcon.

"So he made this before he went all crazy?" Neuro asked softly.

"This falcon was built by Dr Julian, the father and creator of Zane Julian, the White Ninja of Ice," Jay's voice replied from the falcon. "All I did was program it to respond to certain codes and voices. For instance, if it hears the voice of the Overlord or Kai, it will go away."

"Where are the blueprints for the device?" Lloyd asked the falcon.

"In case you haven't noticed, I am not at all physically here," Jay's voice told him, almost robotically. "If you are asking for a personal opinion you will get none. If you are asking a personal question, you will get no answer. If you are asking about the device, you will get no answer. If you are not speaking clearly, you will get no answer. Thank you for your time and patience."

"Wait, you won't tell us about the device?!" Lloyd thought he was going to explode. The others looked a little surprised at his little outburst, but he didn't care. "So you just wasted our time to tell us about a machine you built to help save Kai and you won't tell us where you put the blueprints for it?!"

The falcon angrily ruffled its feathers at Lloyd. "The Overlord decided that the machine is a perfect torture device after it exploded while he was "testing" it on me. A little known fact about Elemental Powers is that the element can't hurt its wielder. For instance, if you were to throw a rock at my friend Cole, it wouldn't hurt him, it would just surprise him. He would be mad, though, so I wouldn't recommend it. Zane can be left in the North Pole and not freeze and Kai will be unharmed if you put him on the surface of the sun… well not really, the much stronger gravity and the lack of oxygen will kill him, but he will be okay, albeit surprised, if you set him on fire. Say continue if you want to know more."

"So you didn't make any blueprints?" Lloyd's father asked. "What if something were to happen to you?"

The falcon let out a Jay-worthy sigh. "I am not physically inside the bird. I am a human being who made a pre-recorded message, stuffed it in the bird and most likely got captured or killed. If you ask about the device, ask a personal question or a personal opinion or aren't speaking clearly, I won't be able to answer you."

"Why won't you tell us about the device?" Dad asked softly.

"It damn near killed me. It might do the same to Kai."

* * *

 _ **Moth Man**_

After the mechanical girl chased him out of the hole in the mechanical ninja's chest, he decided to go and see what his mate was up to, leaving the two adorable creatures semi-alone semi-together with a sigh.

They reminded him a lot of his eldest step-son and his step-daughter-in-law, actually.

Speaking of which, he had to find the mother of his step-children before she did something regrettable.

He sniffed the air for her scent as he walked around the old school.

Finally, after what felt like forever, he found her awing over something hiding under one of the beds, which turned out to be the blue ninja wearing an old sweater and cuddling with a teddy bear.

"I just want to take him home and never give him back ever again," she squeaked when he plopped down next to her.

"Don't you dare." With each word he spoke, he poked the sleeping ninja in the face, which, predictably, interrupted his nap and sent him crawling out of the room with the teddy bear in his mouth, which wasn't a good idea since there was old glass all over the floor and said shards of glass cut his hands and legs.

That caused a trail of blood, leading to where the others humans, excluding the three who were injured and the one who was playing nurse, were talking to the mechanical bird.

The four in the kitchen looked at the crawling ninja in surprise and sadness when he entered.

"Jay, buddy, are you okay?" the one with the black hair and the dark eyes asked, reaching to help his friend up. The little blue boy dodged him as if he expected to be attacked.

His mate giggled and poked the blue boy in the face just like he did moments ago.

 _Sheez, just let the poor kid take a nap._

"Stop poking me!" the blue boy cried, rolling over to lie on his back and proceeding to continue his nap.

The one in the dark clothes then proceeded to take off his shirt and put it over the blue boy to warm him up with a worried look on his face.

 _Aw, that's adorable!_

* * *

 _ **Garmadon**_

The first thing Jay did when Cole offered to help him up was dodge him.

Then he told them to stop poking him (which they never did) and fell asleep thing there on the kitchen floor.

Cole then took off his shirt and covered his best friend in it as if it was a blanket, which wasn't all that hard.

Garmadon, however, couldn't help but feel like he was being watched. As if there was a pair of eyes on him, watching him, waiting for him to fail.

A random black moth fluttered in and decided to sit on Zane's falcon, which then proceeded to flap its wings and scream at it until it crawled off and sat on the table.

Then, right before everybody's eyes (except for the unconscious lot and Pixal), the moth got bigger and turned purple with huge, staring red eyes before fluttering towards Lloyd, who freaked out and tried to slap it away.

It seemed to anger the moth, since it hissed at him, which nearly gave Garmadon a heart-attack.

 _Moths don't do that! They don't hiss!_

For some reason, the moth decided to sit on the sleeping Jay's face, to which Lloyd reacted negatively and threw a dishcloth at it.

The result was that Jay woke up with a dishcloth on his face as well as a magical moth.

He screamed like he was being murdered, which scared the moth away.

Cole hurried over to try and calm him down, only to get kicked and slapped instead. Garmadon hurried over to try and help, but got the same treatment as the other rebel.

Then, finally, after struggling to calm the Blue Ninja down for almost an hour, attracting the attention of Pixal and telling her what was going on, Jay tired himself out and passed out, allowing the android to pick him up and take him to the medical room to remove the glass without any trouble.

But in the meantime, both he and Cole were dog-tired.

* * *

 **Our injured dove flew away and will most likely never come back ever again.  
**

 **In other news, a moth just hissed at Lloyd and freaked everybody out.**


	37. The Blueprints: Part 2

_**Pixal**_

Jay was the first of the lot to wake up, seeing as he just exhausted himself fighting off Cole, Garmadon and according to witnesses, a magical moth that hissed at Lloyd for some reason.

Now, seven years ago, Jay would have been a lot of help repairing Zane, but at the moment, he was just getting in Pixal's way, _trying_ to help by sticking a screwdriver in the hole in Zane's chest and sticking Band-Aids with adorable cartoon characters on them on the still-unconscious Nya.

 _I have to distract him._

"Do you want to help?" Pixal asked sweetly, a plan already formulating in her head.

Jay nodded enthusiastically. "Okay!"

Then Jay opened up the door to Zane's insides and grabbed a handful of wires that Pixal foraged from the microwave after she had done all she could for Ash and Nya.

To avoid having Jay try and fix something vital to Zane and mess it up, causing Zane to die, Pixal gave the Blue Ninja a nearby projector that was once used in one of the ninjas' classes, but now gathered dust.

"Why don't you see what you can make with this?" Pixal asked softly as she handed the worthless device over to him.

The android felt bad for getting annoyed by the Lightning Ninja, but he wasn't being very helpful and she was worried that he might accidently destroy something, causing Zane to never wake up again.

The Blue Ninja didn't seem very excited at the prospect of touching the projector and walked out of the room without a single word.

Maybe he realised that she was trying to distract him and was upset…

* * *

 _ **Lloyd**_

Lloyd almost wet himself when he woke up at around midnight to Jay looming ominously over his bed and shaking him.

Before he could scream, however, Jay's hand was over his mouth and he held a finger to his lips.

"Shush!" Jay looked around, as if to see if anyone was around, then he pulled Lloyd out of his bed. "Come on!"

 _What's he doing?_

Very quietly, Jay dragged Lloyd through the old school and out the front door, all the way into the dark, spooky woods surrounding the building.

Back when he was still in the old school, the other boys would dare each other to go into the woods to find the headless lumberjack that killed everybody who entered his home.

Nobody ever _found_ him, but the thought of entering the woods still gave him the heebie-jeebies, despite the fact that he was the Green Ninja and knew better than to be scared of something that the other boys most likely just made up to scare each other.

But evidence of a lumberjack still remained.

A rusty old axe imbedded in an ancient oak tree, a lumberjack's overalls sitting on a stump, an old, broken-down shack and a pair of men's boots sitting on the roof of the shack.

So, obviously, Lloyd picked up a nearby rake to defend himself, should the legendary lumberjack show up to kill both him and Jay.

Jay continued running, though, and Lloyd struggled to keep up with his friend, who was very insistent on showing him something.

 _Boy, but he's fast._

"Jay! Slow down!" Lloyd tripped over a root of a nearby tree as he chased after Jay. "Jay! Come back!"

The Green Ninja jumped up and chased after his friend again.

But the blue of his friend was gone again before he could catch up.

He was lost.

* * *

 _ **Neuro**_

"Why did he bother encrypting the disk if the password was written on it already?" Neuro asked Cole.

Cole let out a scream, fell out of his bed and sat up, rubbing his head. "What?"

"For instance, if the Overlord had enough patience to go through the whole thing, why would he just drop that hint about the robo-bird and write the activation code on the disk?" Neuro nervously helped the ninja to his feet. "It would be stupid. The Overlord could easily see the disk, watch the whole thing and realise the thing about the cheese, and…"

"The password worked, Neuro," Cole grumbled tiredly.

Neuro could sense Cole's annoyance directed at him but decided not to bring it up.

"Maybe he made a decoy password that would work as well," Neuro told Cole. "Maybe he made _several_ decoy passwords. Like how the movie thing would start over every time someone puts in the wrong number, the falcon would refuse to talk about the blueprints whenever gives the wrong password!"

Cole stared at Neuro. "What."

"Maybe the password for the falcon isn't in the _first_ clip, but in the _last_ one," Neuro theorised. "Or in-between! Maybe the falcon shouldn't _talk_ when someone gives the correct password! Maybe it's supposed to fall apart or lead someone somewhere or transform into a car or something!"

"What."

"Why go through all the trouble of making an entire clip show only to say that there's nothing?" Neuro asked.

Cole's eyes widened. "You're right! Come on, we have to wake the others!"

Neuro nodded, but internally, he wondered if the others would be at all pleased at being woken up at 3 am.

 _These people are all rebels, they're used to waking up early. I just hope none of them decide to punch me or Cole…_

* * *

 **Boy, people are just waking up in this chapter! Let's hope nobody gets hurt...  
**


	38. The Blueprints: Part 3: Giant Woman

_**Forest Lady**_

She woke up to someone sitting on her arm and crying.

Her being her, she was careful when opening her eyes to see what the crying was about.

Sitting on her arm, there was a young mortal boy with light blond hair, not unlike the one who was killed before she went to sleep, wearing bright green clothes and screaming when he saw her glowing golden-green eyes opening and blinking at him.

"Are you okay?" she asked softly, cupping her hands around the tiny creature as it panicked and tried to get away. "Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you. Maybe I can help you."

The little blond tuft screamed when she picked him up.

"No, don't scream, just tell me what's wrong." She stood up and smiled at him as sweetly as a 100-foot-tall woman could manage without looking like she was about to eat him. "Are you lost?"

The little tuft hesitated, then he nodded. "MY FRIEND RAN AWAY!" he screamed.

She chuckled and shook her head. "Child, I may be giant, but I can hear you if you speak normally."

"My friend dragged me in here to show me something or something, and he ran off," the little tuft said, rubbing his face with his sleeve. "I didn't mean to wake you up."

"It's okay, little one. Maybe I can help." She lifted the little tuft up over her head, chuckling to herself. "Can you see your friend?"

 _It's pretty dark, though. Mortals can't see as well as I can…_

"I see something blue!" the little tuft let out. "That way!"

When she looked up, she saw the direction the boy was pointing and started walking in the direction with the boy on her shoulder, holding on to some of her hair as not to fall off.

* * *

 _ **Garmadon**_

He was rudely woken up by Cole and Neuro, one who ripped his blanket from him, and the other who picked him up out of his bed and started carrying him to the kitchen.

No prize for guessing which one had done which.

He was put down when he was fully awake, though, so there was no need for him to start fighting off the person who was carrying him.

"We used the wrong password!" Cole told Garmadon before running off into the next room, where Pixal was busy tending to the injured and the damaged members of the group.

Pixal let out a surprised cry, Cole repeated what he said about them using the wrong password and Ash's voice could be heard making a surprised sound.

Neuro popped up from wherever he went while Garmadon wasn't paying attention with Zane's falcon in his hands, looking like it was used to being plucked up and woken in the middle of the night.

"What's going on?" Garmadon asked the Master of Mind.

"We used the wrong password," Neuro said unhelpfully.

Pixal and Ash came out of the room where now, only Nya and Zane were.

"Can anybody explain what the heck's going on?" Ash growled. "I'm not a big fan of waking up in the middle of the night!"

"Apparently we used the wrong password," Garmadon told the Master of Smoke, who glared at him for not being at all helpful.

"Lloyd's not in here!" Cole's voice rang as he fled from Lloyd's assigned bedroom and hurried over to Jay's room, where he was the previous night, according to evidence. "Jay's not here either!"

With that, Cole nearly ran over Ash and crashed into a nearby wall, causing there to be _two_ holes created in the old school in the past 48 hours.

"What's going on?!" Ash demanded from the Master of Earth as soon as he recovered from his near-death experience. "It's the middle of the night!"

"It's 3 am!" Cole yelled as he continued running around the school, looking for Jay and Lloyd. "Guys?!"

Everyone realised that something was terribly wrong the moment they heard two men and a woman scream. The one man was Cole, but the other two voices were unfamiliar.

"Hey! Who're you?!" Cole's voice demanded.

Garmadon hurried over to where Cole's voice was coming from in a rush.

* * *

 _ **Jay**_

He slipped on some wet grass and found himself caught by the gentle branches of an oak, saving him from the certain death guaranteed by falling off the edge of the cliff.

The dark clouds over his head warned of a coming storm, which meant that there was going to be rain, the horrible, horrible watery substance that fell from the sky, which would make mud, which was even more slippery than wet grass, and puddles, which would make his feet all uncomfortable and heavy to walk with.

 _Maybe I should've waited until morning. Ah well, too late.  
_

With the grace of a confused, featherless chicken, Jay strategically fell from the tree, hitting nine branches on the way down and bringing two of them with him. They were very nice branches, but not very useful, so he left them there and continued walking.

Maybe some random person could use the branches as firewood in the future. Or build a kite with them...

 _I'd like a kite...  
_

Angry lighting striking near him snapped him out of his thoughts, sending him running in the wrong direction to get to where he wanted to go.

He didn't like lightning much.

Before, he liked the lightning, and it liked him as well, but then the whole incident with the device to get the Overlord out of Kai happened and the lightning stopped liking him.

Sure, it couldn't _kill_ him, but it started attacking him from both the inside and the outside.

And that wasn't very nice at all.

* * *

 **We officially have a third mystery person. Let's just hope that she's more helpful than the other two...  
**

 **Cole's very crashy today, isn't he? LOL  
**


	39. The Blueprints: Part 4

_**Jay (Flashback)**_

It was his shaking and his crying that betrayed him.

That, and the fact that his foot was sticking out just the slightest bit in the ball pit of the Kiddie Kingdom.

His foot was where the Overlord, pretending to be Kai, grabbed him, causing his lightning to flip out and try to murder him again, which wouldn't work. It just… hurt.

That was the reason he was screaming like he was being murdered, although the fact that the Overlord had him by the foot didn't help him calm down.

Completely by accident, Jay kicked the Overlord in Kai's face.

 _Oh._

The Overlord, or maybe Kai, let go of him with a grunt.

It gave Jay the chance to get up and flee from the abandoned Kiddie Kingdom (it was closed during the week).

When the Overlord realised what had happened, he started chasing Jay, who reacted by throwing a random toy left behind by some kid at him and crashing through the glass door like a cannonball.

" _ **Come back here!"**_ the Overlord roared as he chased after Jay.

"Nope!" Jay answered, jumping into a random unlocked car in the parking area and hotwiring it. He locked the doors of the car just as the Overlord threw a brick through the windshield, but thankfully, the car had started with ease.

The Overlord grabbed on to the hood of the car and grinned. _**"You're going to have to run over your friend if you want to get away, little ninja."**_

Jay responded by jumping out through the hole that once was the windshield, but before he could get away, the Overlord had him by the arm and was dragging him away.

Three hours later, he was locked in a cell.

 _He didn't kill me. I hope that's good…_

* * *

 _ **Cole**_

The man and the woman stood there in front of him, frozen in shock and terror when Garmadon burst in.

The woman vanished into the thin air with a soft gasp when she saw the older man, dropping the keys to the dungeon.

The man, on the other hand, just looked disappointed and sighed.

"Let's be honest," the man said in a defeated tone of voice. "We all knew she was going to do that."

"Explain." Garmadon folded his arms and glared at the man in a manner that reminded Cole that the old man standing next to him was, in fact, the Dark Lord who tried to take over Ninjago.

The man shrugged and tossed the keys at Cole, hitting him in the eyebrow.

"The blue guy and the blond guy are lost in the woods," the man said. "Also, your buddy Neuro was right. The password wasn't cheese, the falcon was programmed with a number of false passwords."

"Why are you helping us?" Garmadon asked the strange man. "First you rescued me from Overlord Tower and gave me prosthetic arms, then you show up and help us again. Who are you?"

"Wait, the Overlord chopped off your arms?!" Cole asked in shock. "What the fuck?!"

"Language!" the voices of both Garmadon and the strange man scolded.

There was some awkward silence as Gamadon and the man stared at each other with matching looks of confusion on their faces. It probably didn't last as long as it felt.

"Also, if you take a pure white sheet and put it over the flower, you will get a very special surprise," the man said, breaking the silence.

Before either Cole or Garmadon could ask what the strange man was talking about, he vanished into a puff of silver moths that fluttered out the broken window.

"What flower?" Cole asked. "What was he talking about?"

Garmadon blinked at him. "He told us where Jay and Lloyd are and confirmed that we used the wrong password for the falcon. The flower thing, though… No idea."

"Maybe he's lying about everything, though," Cole reasoned. "The woman with him was about to go free the Overlord and he wasn't going to stop her. Maybe he just wants to distract us."

Garmadon sighed. "Maybe. Maybe not. But we can't find Lloyd _or_ Jay, and that man _did_ help me escape from Overlord Tower earlier."

"So we're going to trust him?" Cole asked. "We're going out into the woods in the middle of the night, just because some weird magic guy said to?"

A worried look was shot towards Cole.

 _Oh. He's worried about Lloyd._

"Why don't I go and look for them, and you stay here and help the others figure out the falcon?" Cole suggested. "I used to look for the kids hiding in the woods back when I was a teacher here, I know those woods better than you."

Silently, the former Dark Lord nodded.

* * *

 _ **Zane**_

Zane woke up to Pixal cursing violently (which was a bad habit she picked up while he was imprisoned in the volcano by the Overlord) and Jay's voice telling her that he couldn't understand what she was asking him.

The last thing he remembered was getting stabbed in the chest by the Overlord in Kai's body, so obviously he had some concerns, but the fact that he was repaired and listening to Jay calmly repeating that he couldn't understand her question told him that they had not been captured.

Nya was unconscious in the bed across the room from him, with most of her hair chopped off and several stitches in her head, but her breathing was steady, so he knew that she was okay.

When he looked down to see the damage done by the Overlord, he found that he'd been patched up with some strange white metal with little snowflakes carved into it.

Now, while he didn't mind the carved-in pictures (in fact, he found them very pretty), something told him that Pixal didn't have the time to create the odd metal to fix his hole, much less the time to decorate it. And while Jay might have been the one to help repair him before Pixal came into the picture, he wasn't in the right state of mind to really… be trusted with the kind of tools needed to work with any kind of metal.

Sighing, Zane got up from the bed he was resting on and walked in the direction Pixal's unhappy swearing.

 _I wonder what kind of metal this is. It can't be silver, as my sensors tell me that it is not very conductive. It_ might _be titanium, but that does not seem right…_

Upon arriving in the kitchen, where Pixal, his falcon, Ash, Cole, Neuro and Garmadon were busy having a conversation, everybody stared at him with confused looks on their faces.

"Zane?" Pixal dropped the falcon, which made a sound similar to the one Jay made sometimes when he fell down in training. "Zane! Who repaired you?!"

Zane looked at the group around the table in confusion. "It was not one of you?"

"Everything I know about machines can fit on a pamphlet," Ash confessed. "And I was unconscious until Captain Crash woke us all up."

"Same here," Cole agreed.

"I can hack a mean computer if I have to, but fixing a Nindroid is a whole other story," Garmadon said.

Neuro shrugged. "I was a psychiatrist before the Overlord took over. I don't know much about fixing androids."

"What about Jay?" Zane asked.

Pixal had a sudden guilty look on her face. "He _tried_ to help, but I asked him to stop and he ran away. We think he's in the woods with Lloyd, but we don't know where."

"The Overlord lured Lloyd to the woods before he killed him," Jay's voice stated from the falcon. "I went looking for Lloyd and Kai, but by the time I got there, it was already too late."

"Could somebody please explain why Jay's voice is inside my falcon?"

* * *

 **Adorable news: The baby bird started bathing by itself and ate some bugs outside. He also makes puppy sounds sometimes.**

 **Whoever could have fixed Zane? Why is Jay's voice inside the falcon? Is there something useful in the woods?**

 **Thank you for reading and reviewing!**


	40. The Blueprints: Part 5

_**Lloyd**_

The gigantic woman was happily telling him stories about her friends while she was wading through the trees towards the blue speck in the distance.

"So, when Ocia had her baby, it turned out to be a _squid_ ," the woman said, laughing. "A _literal_ squid! Her mate's best friend, Kitsi, wouldn't let it go for _years_ , even when the baby learned how to make himself look humanoid!"

Lloyd giggled a little.

The woman laughed as she gently pushed a deer out of her way. "Oh, but that's _nothing_ compared to the time Star wound up accidently getting worshipped by the Azti people!"

"How did _that_ happen?" Lloyd asked, trying not to laugh.

"Well," the woman said, stifling a laugh, "he was just flying around one day, minding his own business, when all of a sudden, he crashed down. There were feathers _everywhere_! Now, I'll have you know that I only have the greatest respect for old Stardust, he's one of the best we've got, but you should have seen the poor guy's face when he told us! Red, red, red!"

"OMG!"

The woman laughed some more. "OMG indeed! The Azti people, deciding that only some kind of god could crash like that, started sending him these flowers. They look kind of like tulips, but come in bunches and have this nasty habit of biting. Very pretty, though. It's a shame they're extinct…"

The woman was quiet as she thought about how tragic it was that the biting flowers were now all dead, then she put Lloyd down with a sigh.

"I'm afraid that it's time for me to go, little one," she said. "I can't go with you to where you are going."

Before Lloyd could ask her why, she had already curled up in a little ball and fell asleep in the form of a hill-shaped woman.

With that done, Lloyd turned in the direction he believed that Jay was in, running to catch up, just in case the other Ninja got himself hurt.

* * *

 _ **Ash**_

Ash, in an uncharacteristic manner, was attempting to help while Pixal explained why Jay's voice was in his falcon.

He was shaking said falcon, sending brown feathers everywhere, yelling at it to tell him where the blueprints were.

 _That_ was _not_ out of character for him.

It was the shaking that revealed to him the secret of the falcon.

The Nindroid was shocked, of course, when he grabbed the dumb bird to shake and scream at it, and tried to stop him, even _after_ it was explained to him that the falcon was supposed to show them where the blueprint for the device to get rid of the Overlord was hidden, and was refusing.

It was Ash's shaking of the bird that revealed to him the loose wire under its wing.

He pulled the wire.

Within two seconds, the bird screamed, bit Ash, clawed Zane, screamed some more, tried to eat the light fixture (it could do that because it was a robot) and fell apart (literally) when Zane screamed out "Casu Marzu".

All within two seconds.

"So _that's_ what's supposed to happen!" Neuro exclaimed, sounding very excited while Zane worried about if the bird was going to be okay or not, and Garmadon wondered how they were supposed to figure out that they were supposed to pull the wire to get what they needed.

Cole said his goodbyes to the group (he was heading out to look for Jay and Lloyd) and left through the door instead of making another hole.

"Don't worry, Zane," Pixal told the Nindroid. "We can always _repair_ the falcon."

Ash seriously doubted Pixal's words, as looking at the mass of parts and pieces on the table gave him flashbacks to when his car fell apart.

He made up his mind not to say what he thought out loud, though.

"I have to go!" Gamradon suddenly said with such urgency, that Ash wondered what kind of "go" he was talking about.

He ran to the back, where the bedrooms were, then he came back with a white sheet.

For an older guy, he sure had a lot of speed, fleeing from the building with said sheet.

 _Ah, the old man's going all Scooby Doo villain on the Overlord._ Man _, I'd like to see that._

"So," Pixal said, "let's see what Jay put inside this bird."

* * *

 _ **Jay**_

Jay carefully tested the ground in front of him, checking to see if there was any of the annoying slipperiness to make him fall down.

So far, there was none, but one could never be too safe.

"Okay, this way," Jay said to Possibly Lloyd, who wasn't there at the moment, "is where I put my old ninja gi."

He could imagine someone's voice, maybe from before his capture, scolding him and telling him that his room was a mess, which was why he couldn't find anything in it.

 _But this isn't my room. I don't sleep in the forest… Do I?_

Jay tried to remember where his room was before his capture, but he couldn't.

Tired from all the walking he did, and all the running he did during the short thunderstorm, he yawned and curled up in a little ball to peacefully fall asleep.

Sadly, his nap was murdered by Possibly Lloyd, who suddenly appeared out of nowhere and shook him until he had enough.

"I'm not dead!" Jay screamed. "Stop shaking me!"

Possibly Lloyd looked embarrassed, shocked and a little like he's been crying earlier.

Without saying another word, Jay pulled in the younger boy for a hug.

* * *

 **Well, at least Jay's sorry for screaming at Lloyd.**

 **The forest lady told Lloyd stories to calm him down a little and the falcon fell apart. What's next?**


	41. Build the Robots

_**Pixal**_

She scanned and searched through the falcon's remains, removing anything that wasn't one of the original parts and setting it in a bowl in the middle of the table.

Zane, once he was done sulking, helped.

"He _did_ warn that he took the falcon apart," Pixal told him. "He just did not say _how_."

Zane dropped a spare screw in the bowl.

"So your friend was always nuts, huh?" Ash asked, earning himself an angry glare from Pixal and Zane.

"You _do_ understand that he was tortured?" Zane asked, his voice dangerously low.

"So?" Ash received a glare from Neuro. "It's not like the Overlord could've started the process _before_ capturing your buddy, now is it?"

Ash didn't seem to notice the guilty look on Zane's face, because he didn't say anything about it, and continued talking.

"I mean, he realised that the Overlord possessed your friend before anyone else did. Why didn't he tell one of his friends, aka, one of you?"

Pixal wanted to strangle Ash.

"It's pretty hard to _not_ realise that something like that is going on," Ash continued. "So either he was already crazy by the time he started making all of this, or, you are all terrible people."

 _Shut up shut up shut up!_

"Ash, the Overlord used a machine Jay built to exorcize him out of Kai on him while everyone else was out on a mission. Do not speak of things you don't understand." Pixal dropped a piece of paper in the bowl.

Zane added two wires to the bowl without another word.

* * *

 _ **Pixal (Flashback)**_

Unlike the Nindroids serving the Overlord, which had hard shells and was _meant_ to be frightening, Pixal had soft, silicone carefully draped over a well-made titanium skeleton and was meant to be pleasant for visitors who came to see the tower.

She was not built to run around all over Ninjago, fighting innocents and imprisoning those who stood up for themselves and others.

 _Maybe setting a bomb in the Nindroid factory was a bad idea…_

The little Nindroid, called Minidroid by Cryptor, was still after her, in all of his beeping fury, swords drawn and eyes glowing like fire.

It stuck her as odd, how persistent the little pest was.

All of the other Nindroids abandoned the hunt in twos and threes, but Minidroid didn't give up.

A tiny little angry monster, out to avenge all of those who would have been created if only she didn't destroy the factory.

She ran on part of the power source Zane gave her, so she didn't need to be recharged, but Minidroid seemed to run on rage alone, as it's been three days, and he was still going strong.

She was getting tired.

Not as in, she wanted to go to bed and sleep, more along the lines of getting sick of being chased by a rage-powered Nindroid.

So, in the middle of the fourth day, she just stopped running and turned around right where she was, glaring at the little pest.

He stopped and eyed her suspiciously.

"Go away!" she yelled. "Stop chasing me!"

Minidroid angrily beeped at her.

She threw a rock at him.

He beeped some more, then he stormed at her, swords out and ready to destroy her.

The little robot did not see the tyre in front of him.

He tripped over it, dropped both his swords, which Pixal took in a hurry, and then he angrily beeped at the armed and displeased android in front of him.

"Go away."

Minidroid furiously shook his head.

With a loud groan, Pixal turned around to continue on her current path.

Several feet behind her, a safe distance away from his confiscated swords, Minidroid followed.

* * *

 _ **Cryptor (Present)**_

Ever since Minidroid betrayed the Overlord, all new models were built with only one purpose: Serving the Overlord.

Cryptor was one of the few old models left, but he was too loyal to the Overlord, and too valuable.

His skills in battle, his cunning and his ability to demand the respect of the other Nindroids, the cyborgs and the microchipped soldiers were well-appreciated by his master.

That was why he was sent after one of the most well-known rebels in Overlord City, aided by one of the most important cyborgs in the army.

Wu was programmed to guard the Black Ninja, an important job, yes, but not _nearly_ as dangerous, as said ninja had a microchip implanted in the back of his skull to keep him calm and easy to contain.

The Nindroid General was pleasantly surprised upon finding Garmadon wandering around in the woods with a white sheet in his arms.

It made his job all the easier.

He was just about ready to pounce, though, when Wu pulled him back by his armour.

"Wait. Perhaps he is doing something that the Overlord will want to hear about."

"Are you certain that your wiring isn't loose?" Cryptor hissed. "The Overlord wants him, and he wants him _dead_. Nobody escapes from Overlord Tower and lives to tell the tale. Those are the _rules_ , remember?"

Cryptor made ready to jump yet again, but Wu's metal-coated hand had him by the back of his neck. "Are you really just going to blindly follow your master? Need I remind you of what happened to every other Nindroid of your model?"

Cryptor swung a fist at Wu, who dodged and slammed his metal body against a nearby tree.

"Don't you _ever_ talk about _them_ again!" Cryptor growled, despite the fact that he wasn't in a position to make any kind of demands. "Your wires are loose!"

"There is no Signal Tower close enough for him to control us." Wu's eyes stopped glowing red and his beard turned white. "Let him go, Cryptor."

* * *

 **Wild Mindroid appeared!  
**

 **I bet you all thought that I forgot about Cryptor and Wu, running around, looking for Garmadon, having wacky misadventures...**

 **And Pixal seems to have had _quite_ the adventure before finding Zane.**


	42. Butterflies of Evil

_**Garmadon**_

The rustling in the trees put Garmadon at edge, so when Cole popped out, surprised and angry to see him there, he let out a breath of relief.

"I thought you were one of the Overlord's Nindroids," Garmadon told the young ninja.

"I thought you were back with the others!" Cole shouted. "What the heck, man?!"

"We will find Jay and Lloyd sooner if we work as a team." Garmadon told him.

Cole rolled his eyes, but he didn't argue. "Okay."

After that, the two of them walked quietly through the woods, looking for any trace of their two missing friends.

Then Garmadon found something that made his blood run cold.

The footprints of robotic feet, not belonging to Pixal or Zane, just a few feet away from where he and Cole were.

There were signs of a struggle, then the two of them just walked away together.

 _We have to find them before these two find them!_

Cole seemed to realize what the robotic footprints meant as well. "We have to hurry."

* * *

 _ **Lloyd**_

Jay was humming to himself as he led Lloyd deeper and deeper into the woods.

He was quiet, but maybe it was because everything else was quiet and he realised that it would disturb the peace if he spoke.

Behind them, the sun was rising.

In front of them, a meadow was growing little golden flowers, wrapping themselves around the only willow tree they could find.

 _It's so pretty here._

"He killed you here," Jay said all of a sudden. "The Overlord. Not Kai. Kai would _never_ …"

Suddenly the meadow wasn't so pretty anymore.

Being at the place where the other version of him was killed seven years ago didn't seem to worry Jay though. The Master of Lightning made himself ready to dive into the flowers, when a swarm of clear-winged butterflies flew up from the flowers.

Jay's feet were both off the ground, but time seemed to stop for all but Lloyd.

The butterflies seemed to be dancing around him, but unlike the moths, they never touched him.

They were much prettier than any moth, but something about them scared Lloyd in a way that the moths couldn't quite manage.

The moths seemed to want to help him, they seemed to _care_ , in their weird, buggy little way, but the butterflies seemed to think that he was beneath them.

Then the voice started speaking, silky soft and smooth. "You should be dead."

All around him, the moths formed pictures of a younger version of himself being strangled by Kai.

"Oh, I get it." The disembodied voice sounded amused. "You aren't _him_."

"How do _you_ know?" Lloyd snapped at the voice.

"You _stink_ of him." The voice laughed softly. "He got his moth-stink all over you."

Lloyd watched as the version of himself on the butterflies changed to show his timeline's version of his friends.

Cole was sleeping in a white hospital bed, looking oddly small where he was.

Kai was sleeping in a chair next to him, looking like he hadn't slept in a month.

Zane was back at the temple, saying something to Jay that Lloyd couldn't hear, but Nya seemed to agree with.

"I can send you back home," the voice said sweetly. "Back where you belong. Everything will go back to the way they were before."

A delicate-looking man with shoulder-length black hair appeared in the midst of the butterflies.

When the little black moth appeared, the man smiled at Lloyd as he caught it, and squashed it between his fingers, ignoring the fearful squeaking of the moth as he did so. "So, what do you say?"

* * *

 _ **Moth Man**_

He and his moths attacked the traitor from behind with a loud screech.

 _He killed it. He killed my moth. Nobody kills my moth...  
_

The traitor turned invisible to fight him without the confused eyes of the Green Ninja staring at him.

The fight distracted his brother well enough to allow the Blue Ninja, who wasn't even aware that there was anything going on, to dive into the flowers to retrieve the metal box that he came for.

The little boy in green looked around, confused by the storm of moth and butterfly fighting a battle.

Wings and antennae rained down around the two ninjas, some from butterflies, some from moths.

The traitor had him by the hair, while he had the traitor by the ear.

With a swift movement, he used his dagger to cut off the handful of black hair in the traitor's hand, allowing him to escape and take his remaining moths along with him.

The traitor froze the poor blue ninja again and reappeared to Lloyd.

"So," the traitor said, as if he wasn't fighting five seconds ago, "are you going back to where you belong, or are you going to be selfish and stay here, just because _Daddy's_ alive here..."

With a swift movement, he sent his moths towards the traitor yet again.

Distracted again, he dropped the blue boy, who made a confused sound and went back to his box.

The little green ninja seemed appropriately distressed. The blue ninja seemed even _more_ appropriately distressed, considering that he was frozen in time twice now.

He laughed a little to himself, despite what was going on, when in a panic, the blue ninja threw his box at the green ninja, hitting him in the face, because he was not paying any attention.

The traitor then got punched so hard, he vanished into a puff of butterflies and went away, leaving him behind to fly to a nearby tree to recuperate, watching as the green ninja freaked out about how he was going to get an ugly scar now.

Insulted, the blue ninja touched the scar over his one eyebrow and glared at the boy in front of him.

"Sorry, I didn't mean it like that!" the green ninja cried out to his friend, who was now tracing something on his arm.

He laughed so hard that he fell out of his tree.

* * *

 **What's going on with the robotic footprints? What is the history between the Moth Man and the Butterfly Man? And most importantly, what's in the box?  
**


	43. The Box

_**Pixal (Flashback)**_

Minidroid was still following her, like some kind of horrible stink or a rage-powered assassin looking to disassemble her in her sleep, which she had caught him attempting at least twice while she was awake (being a robot).

He also tried to get his swords back, but now that she had them, she wasn't about to let them go back to their owner, who would dissect her with them the moment she armed him, so she just walked on with a pair of swords strapped to her back, a tiny Nindroid ten feet away from her and her silver hair all messed up from the constant fighting she and the little guy had.

She lost her hair tie in one of the shuffles, so she was walking around with her hair loose now, looking completely unprofessional, and her purple dress was starting to tear itself off her body.

Then the two of them found themselves at Ignacia.

The village was burned down, with the fresh ashes telling her that the Overlord had been there very recently with his army. There were many dead bodies lying on the grass, burned to a crisp, with flies buzzing around their rotting selves.

"Oh no…" Pixal felt sick.

 _All these innocent people, dead…_

As soon as Kai was rescued, he would want to get revenge on the Overlord for what he'd done to his hometown. He'd want to tear the Overlord apart, molecule by molecule, and then, he'd kill him.

She knew that she shouldn't leave the dead bodies out in the open, but Pixal had a bad feeling that the Overlord would come back eventually and if he saw that there was a funeral held for the people, he might move on to destroy the next village over, assuming that it was still there.

The best she could do was throw an old suitcase she found hidden beneath the ashes of the village and take it for herself, hoping to open it and use whatever was inside as soon as Minidroid stopped trying to kill her.

Or at least when he ran out of power.

* * *

 _ **Zane**_

Among the extra pieces that came from the falcon, Zane found a crudely drawn object on a piece of yellow paper that looked like a mix between a beach chair and a torture device.

Little notes, a couple of old specks of blood, a couple of fingerprints as the maker was folding it…

"I believe that this may be the device that Jay built to exorcize the Overlord out of Kai," Zane told the others. "Or at least part of it."

"The Overlord made a crude copy of it," Neuro said in a strange voice.

When everybody turned to look at the mind-reader in shock, they found that his eyed were blood-red.

"Neuro, how do you know that?" Pixal asked, sounding rightfully suspicious.

"When I went to break the little green boy's old man out, I found him strapped to it." Neuro seemed far too excited to be possessed by the Overlord, but chances were, the Dark Lord isn't the only one who could possess someone. "My theory is that Lord Gas Cloud had Captain Dumbass recreate it best he could, but since Little Boy Blue didn't make any blueprints for it, it didn't work _quite_ as he hoped."

 _Who?_

"You know," the person possessing Neuro said, "The Overlord and his stupid snake."

"Pythor?"

Neuro nodded. "Why, yes. But don't worry about _him_ anymore. Somebody had a little temper tantrum and killed him so dead, I doubt he'll even become a ghost."

Before anyone could ask Neuro what he meant by that, his eyes returned to their natural colour and a rather large purple moth with red "eyes" appeared on his face, only to flutter out through the window.

Ash ran over to try and ask his friend what happened, but it appeared that the man had either died, or had simply passed out. When Zane checked his pulse, he found that it was running at an alarming rate. Ash panicked when he was told about his friend's increased heart rate and inspected him at the speed of light.

"Neuro! Can you hear me?!" Ash slapped Neuro lightly in the face. "Stay with me, okay buddy?"

Neuro made a strangled sound, then he sat up, gasping.

"What _was_ that?!"

 _I_ _wish I knew…_

* * *

 _ **Jay**_

Jay sat on the grass while Possibly Lloyd continued telling him that he didn't mean anything about scars being ugly.

 _Jeez, kid. Calm down._

"I mean, I don't even _know_ where you got your scar! It could've come from fighting some kind of evil monster or something, and I shouldn't make fun of that!"

"It blew up in my face," Jay told him, tracing the flowery lines left behind from the last time he got hit by lightning, thinking that maybe it would be able to get out like that.

Possibly Lloyd turned to him. "No, I mean, the one on your eyebrow. I don't know what happened there, and…"

"It blew up in my face," Jay told Possibly Lloyd. "A lot of things do."

"The scar on your eyebrow?"

Jay nodded. "Yep."

"But you still have it back home," Possibly Lloyd complained. "What blew up?!"

 _What's he talking about? "Back home"? Is he from another universe or some- Oh. He is. He is, that's why he didn't know about Kai and why he isn't a ghost and…_

"Take the box," Jay ordered.

Other Lloyd picked the box up.

Jay started walking in the direction of the school.

Other Lloyd ran after him, holding the metal box. "So what's in here?"

Jay shrugged. "Don't remember. It's important, but I don't remember. I don't remember a lot of things."

Other Lloyd nodded quietly.

"What does that mean?" Jay asked.

"Zane says that when he first found you, you didn't know him and you kept hitting your tube-thing and screaming."

"Who's Zane again?"

Other Lloyd looked sad again. "He's our friend, remember?"

Jay shrugged. "Meh."

"The Ice Ninja? It was his bird that you programmed to…"

Other Lloyd's pleadings were halted by the two fake Nindroids popping out of the bushes and Jay letting out a startled scream at seeing them.

The bigger of the two gave Jay a bear-hug (which he decided not to fight off, despite his lightning getting mad and hurting him) and the old one hugged Other Lloyd.

"Oh, hello," Jay greeted them. "Nice to meet you. I dropped my box on Lloyd, but it's okay, because he didn't mean it. How are you?"

* * *

 **I bet Cole and Garmadon are both very confused right now. Please enjoy, and please review!  
**

 **Any advice about the baby Mynah (which keeps biting my toes, shirt, hair and also his own toes), who is going through a rebellious stage right now, will be appreciated. He screams at my toes...**


	44. The Wonders of Wu

_**Cole**_

Cole was surprised, but relieved when Jay didn't freak out when he was hugged, and actually hugged him back.

"It's okay, buddy." Jay yawned when Cole told him that. "Why don't we get back to the school and you can go back to sleep, okay?"

Jay shook his head. "No, I don't want to sleep."

"He woke me up at midnight," Lloyd snitched from where he was being fussed over by his father.

The Green Ninja received an angry glare. "I can throw the box again."

Lloyd raised an eyebrow. "How? _I'm_ the one who has the box, remember?"

Jay let out a strangled sound as he fought to get away from Cole to try and get to Lloyd. "Give me the box so I can throw it at you!"

Jay wiggled until Cole had no choice but to let go of him.

Thankfully, he didn't go _flying_ at Lloyd, as Cole feared, but he _did_ plop down on the ground and sigh. "Okay, it's bedtime. I can walk. Don't worry about me, I can get back by myself."

"Jay, there are Nindroids in the woods, and we don't want one of them to get either of you," Garmadon said in his dad-voice."

Jay sighed again. "Okay, but I can walk."

"Obviously. Lloyd didn't _carry_ you all the way out here," Garmadon told the ninja lying in the dirt.

"Don't pick me up," Jay said as he clumsily pulled himself up using Cole's arm. "I'm… very… fragile."

Jay flapped his arms, as if that would help prove his point, then he blinked at Cole. "I'm an egg."

 _Okay…_

"We should still get back to the school, egg or not," Cole told the others. "Nindroids, remember?"

Cole took Jay by the arm and started walking, but he didn't take that very well.

"Egg! EGG!"

Lloyd and Garmadon came running after.

"Jay, if you don't stop screaming, the Nindroids are going to _hear_ us, and what do you think happens then?" Garmadon asked. "We'll all get locked up again!"

That made Jay turn white and shut up.

He quietly ran alongside Cole, but he also seemed to be moping, so Cole wasn't sure if it was better.

* * *

 _ **Wu**_

Wu struggled for a while to get the cybernetics out on himself before Cryptor got frustrated, told him that he was going to kill himself like that, and helpfully removed the metal from the aged sensei.

"You know what I didn't have in a long time?" Wu asked the Nindroid after all of the cybernetics had been removed from him. "Tea."

The machine groaned and punched a nearby tree.

"What's the matter?" Wu wiggled his toes in his boots and started walking in the direction he believed might contain a plant capable of producing tea. "Do you not _like_ tea?"

"No, I do not."

 _Blamesphy._

"Have you even _tried_ tea?" Wu asked, picking some delicious-smelling leaves to prepare for tea. "It's very goo- What was that?"

Wu could hear someone franticly screaming something about eggs in the distance.

"We should just get out of here," Cryptor told Wu. "You do not happen to know of a safe place to keep away from the Overlord, do you?"

Wu nodded. "The Destiny's Bounty is plenty safe."

Cryptor rolled his glowing red eyes. "The Overlord keeps it in the Museum, which is in the city. How do you propose we get it without me getting in range of the towers and you getting captured?"

Wu smiled. "The little one didn't fall back into his programming when he returned into range. I have a feeling that you should be safe. And I did not get to be this old by being feeble, now did I?"

* * *

 _ **Nya**_

Nya woke up to half of her hair gone and a horrible pain in both her head and her ribs.

It was as if someone threw a car at her or something, and then left her to deal with the pain without any painkillers.

When she put her hand to her head, she found that someone put staples in her skull.

 _Ow._

Looking around the room, Nya decided that it was clear that the Overlord didn't win in the battle earlier, since he would not even _bother_ taking care of someone who betrayed his "cause", he'd just kill them on the spot and move on to the next sucker. She'd seen him do it.

But just in case, Nya dragged herself out of the bed and observed her surroundings.

 _Four walls. A window: prisoners don't get windows. A door: Open. Not for the prisoners._

"Ash, I'm okay, I just passed out," a vaguely familiar voice said from outside in the hallway. "Anyway, if anything, _I'm_ the one who should be worried about _you_."

Nya grabbed on to the wall as she managed to remember who Ash and his friend was.

 _They're those two guys that Lloyd and Jay brought with them. What happened after the attack?_

The last thing she could remember was something large and grey flying at her, and then…

Nothing.

Careful, just in case she was just being tricked, Nya walked out, through the door, and passed out in the middle of the hallway in front of two men who screamed the moment she hit the floor.

* * *

 **Jay is an egg, Cryptor learns the wonders of Wu, and Nya just woke up. Fun day.  
**

 **I think you're right about the bird, lol. Today he screamed at my toes, tried to bite my grandmother and great-aunt, and flew into the neighbor's yard to go sit in a tree, which nearly gave me a heart-attack. Fun times! (he's grounded, my great-aunt heard me screaming in the shower on the other side of the house)**


	45. Deadline

_**Jay**_

The fake Nindroid was hurting him, even though he _explained_ that he was fragile.

But something told him that maybe it was his own fault, going on and on about how he was an egg to explain that he was fragile. Maybe he should have explained some other way…

 _Glass? No, the glass didn't break… Spiderweb? I think there's some on me right now…_

"I'm going to scream now," Jay told the fake Nindroid the moment he noticed that there _was_ web on him, and that the spider (a monster as big as his hand) came along for the ride.

"No, don't scream," the fake Nindroid told him, not even looking around while the other one and Other Lloyd were too busy talking with each other to notice the creepy, leggy thing. "Remember the Nindroids?"

It reminded him of a skeleton, but brown and with hair and eight eyes and legs, all which were on him.

"I'm going to scream!" Jay cried, completely uncomfortable with the spider edging closer and closer to his face. "Then I'm going to cry! You're hurting me!"

The fake Nindroid and the two others stopped running.

 _Good, now I can scream without having to run at the same time._

"Aaaargh!" The spider was almost on his face now. "Get it off! Get it _off_!"

The fake Nindroid spun around and let out a startled squeak. "Is that a _spider_?!"

Jay nodded and continued to scream as he told the other three he was going to. The fake Nindroid grabbed a nearby leaf and used it as a mitt to grab the spider. It wiggled its legs at him, to which the fake Nindroid jumped and let go of the leaf, causing the spider to go and sit on Jay again.

Jay stopped, dropped and rolled, something he remembered one was supposed to do when something dangerous (he couldn't remember what exactly) was on one.

"Jay, you do _that_ for fire," Other Lloyd told him with a sigh.

Much to his horror, the other fake Nindroid grabbed the spider with his bare hands and let it go into some nearby bushes. One does _not_ do that with spiders!

His attempts to get rid of the spider must have freaked out his lightning, because there was a weird taste in his mouth and he started having a coughing fit, his insides burning as the lightning attacked him.

The world around him was blurring and slowly getting darker and darker.

Everything was spinning, and he wanted them to stop, but when he tried to say something, all that came out was "Argnrgngrngrnrrrr," which seemed to be the password for making everything go dark.

 _Okay, then. This is a good place to sleep anyway._

* * *

 _ **Pixal (Flashback)**_

That _thing_ kept following her, angrily beeping whenever she was out of his line of sight, putting her in danger of being caught by whoever was working for the Overlord in the area.

 _It's been a month already, why can't he just give up?!_

 _That_ was when she found herself shutting down.

Her core had overheated, several of her wires had come loose and were exposed and she was experiencing multiple errors, which was a bad thing, considering that Minidroid could easily take her apart while she was trying to deal with the errors.

It was only her, and an angry killing-machine, in the middle of nowhere.

When she woke up again, something was a little off.

She wasn't where she shut down, and a strange woman was sitting by her side, reading a book on Ninjagoan culture and taking a drink from a bottle of lilac-coloured _something_ every now and then.

"Where am I?" Pixal sat up, and found, much to her surprise, that she had been repaired, her wires had been replaced and so was her core. "What happened?!"

The woman looked up and groaned. "I quit, _that's_ what happened."

Pixal blinked at her. "I do not understand."

"Look, I was just minding my own business, hallucinating in the rosebushes, when all of a sudden, your little friend comes right at me, beeping like the traffic in Ninjago City, and dragging me to you." The woman took another drink from her bottle before speaking again. "Next thing I know, I'm helping that little beast fix you while my chickens keep attacking me for not paying attention to _them_."

 _Wait, Minidroid went to get help?_

The woman stood up and left through the bushes, either to hallucinate in peace or to check up on her chickens.

A few minutes later, Minidroid came up to her, beeped angrily, and pulled her to her feet.

"Thank you for helping," Pixal told the little Nindroid. "You did not have to, but you still did."

Minidroid stopped beeping and handed her a piece of paper.

Printed on it with sharp black ink, was the name of a volcano so active, that nobody ever tried to settle there in the entire history of Ninjago.

* * *

 _ **Pixal**_

After helping Nya back to bed, she returned to Zane, who was busy studying the extra parts removed from his falcon with a confused expression.

"Maybe it's a puzzle," Zane told her, "or some kind of device that needs to be assembled…"

"If it's a device, it can't be the one that Jay meant to use against the Overlord."

Zane nodded. "Of course, but what if it's a _part_ of the device?"

Almost by magic, a small swarm of moths appeared.

They were rather colourful, and might be mistaken for butterflies, if it weren't for their feathery antennae.

It was like a rainbow threw up all over them.

"What are they doing?" Pixal could hear Zane ask behind her as they arranged themselves to form shapes.

There didn't seem to be a pattern, but all the same, neither she nor Zane could look away from them.

Then they disappeared, and some letters appeared on the table, carved into the wood.

"Time is running out," Pixal read. "In twelve hours, he will be gone for good. Hurry if you wish to save your friend."

* * *

 **Looks like somebody's in trouble.  
**

 **But who? And what's the device that was in the bird? Also, nobody ever told me what Lloyd's dragon's name is, if you know, please tell me in the reviews**


	46. Remember You

_**Lloyd**_

Cole had no trouble picking Jay up, but he did seem a little excessively careful as he was doing so.

And so, the three of them quietly walked to the old school while the Master of Lightning peacefully slept in Cole's arms, only breaking the silence when he whimpered like he was sick or something.

While they walked, Lloyd told his father and Cole what happened, including the part with the butterflies and the gigantic woman, to which his father and Cole exchanged concerned looks.

"We found two weird people sneaking around the school," Cole told Lloyd. "I think the woman wanted to free the Overlord, and the man said something weird about sheets and flowers. Both of them vanished."

"Huh." Lloyd frowned. "The woman said that she has this friend who got flowers as sacrifices from this tribe."

"Box?" Jay groaned. "You… have box?"

"How are you doing, buddy?"

"We need the box for the thing," Jay mumbled, twisting himself out of Cole's arms. "It's inside."

Lloyd patted the metal box under his arm. "It's right here."

Jay let out a sigh of relief. "Good, good. We need the thing inside it."

"You already said so," Garmadon told the Blue Ninja. "What's in it?"

Jay made an "I don't know"-sound. "I can't remember. I _used_ to keep my Gummi-Ninjas in it and bite the heads off the ones who annoyed me, but I threw them out when the Overlord killed Lloyd."

 _I wonder if Jay still bites the heads off his Gummi-Ninjas back home? I'll have to ask him if I get back.  
_

"Wait, you remember that?" Cole asked, completely shocked.

"Do you remember anything else?" Cole sounded extremely excited. "Do you remember _me_?!"

"Um…" Jay looked at Lloyd, Garmadon, and then back at Cole's probably overexcited face and hesitated as he looked back. "You are… um… Cole?"

Cole hugged Jay, whose brief look of guilt told Lloyd that the Master of Lighting was working on what he told him earlier. It was a lucky shot, and Jay knew it.

* * *

 _ **Dareth**_

Dareth hurryingly kicked the Helmet of Darkness under the bed when Edna entered his room.

"Edna, honey, what a surprise!" Dareth told her, giving her a big fake grin to avoid being caught. "Anything new I should know about?"

Ever since he came back (alone), Ed, Edna and all of the Royal Blacksmiths teamed up together to find out what happened during the mission that ended far too quickly and with far too few rebels returning.

Dareth didn't want to get their hopes up by telling them that their children were okay, seeing as he didn't know if they were, but he didn't want to upset them, seeing as he had no idea where those guys were.

"Two of the Overlord's minions are no longer under his power," Edna told him. "They're hanging around at the old school, I thought you should know."

"Thanks, Edna!" Dareth told her, hopping up to push her out of his room. "But everybody knows that the control-tower at the old school is busted. Please knock next time, I could have been naked, thanks!"

Edna was protesting, telling him that she wanted to know where her son was and that the Royal Blacksmiths wanted to know where their kid was and that they deserved to know, but her complaints fell on deaf ears and before she could even try to break in again, Dareth had locked his bedroom door and had the Helmet of Darkness sitting on his lap.

 _Should I use it, or should I have faith in Garmadon and the kids? Oh, I wish I knew if they were okay!_

Sometimes it wasn't easy being a leader and making the tough decisions.

Taking a deep breath, Dareth put the Helmet of Darkness on his head.

 _Please let this be the right decision._

* * *

 _ **Garmadon**_

Garmadon knew that something was wrong when he saw the guilty look on Jay's face.

So, he waited until Cole was out of earshot, and he spoke. "You didn't remember that on your own, did you?"

Jay shook his head. "No, Lloyd told me. The other one is Zane, right?"

"Yes. But you have to tell Cole the truth."

Jay mumbled something and shook his head again.

"What was that?"

"I feel bad." Jay turned his head to where Cole was excitedly telling Lloyd how happy he was that Jay's memory was coming back to him. "I know I know him, and the other one too, the Zane-one, but I don't remember."

"Letting them cling to false hope is much crueller than telling them the truth." Garmadon could remember back when he was still affected by the venom of the Great Devourer and he still fought against its effects. Wu truly believed that he was no longer evil by the time he decided to steal the Golden Weapons. "You have to tell him the truth."

"The other one, the Zane-one, I can remember him," Jay whispered. "When I was locked up, he would talk to me and tell me that he was going to get me out. I don't remember a lot of before I was locked up, but he would tell me some things. It bugged me, but he was the only one who would talk to me and bring me things."

"Oh?"

Jay nodded sadly. "Yeah… He was upset at first when I didn't like him, but he kept coming and brought me things. His pixies helped him make some of the things…"

"Her name is Pixal," Garmadon told Jay, "and there's only one of her."

"Oh."

Garmadon got the feeling that Jay wasn't going to tell Cole the truth about not really being able to remember him. Maybe it didn't matter.

Jay _did_ just tell him that he could remember _some_ things, after all.

"Cole's my best friend," Jay said under his breath. "He does rock-stuff and sings sometimes. He doesn't know that I can hear him, though. Please don't tell him I can't remember."

Garmadon smiled and put his hand on Jay's shoulder. "Okay."

 _It looks like you can remember a little anyway._

"I won't."

* * *

 **Sorry for not updating in a while, we were away from internet for a while. I went to the zoo for my B-day, then I went to the hospital (unrelated to the zoo) and above it all, the baby bird keeps trying to help me write this fic by jumping on the keyboard.  
**

 **In other news, Jay is starting to remember Cole and Zane, and Dareth just put on the Helmet of Darkness (I keep misspelling the dude's name and I have to correct it), so things are about to get serious.**


	47. Almost Over

_**Zane**_

Zane fell out of his seat when Cole burst in through the doors with the two who went missing and Garmadon on his heels. "Jay's remembering!"

Pixal dropped the pot of hot water she was carrying in surprise. "What?!"

Ash teleported away in a puff of smoke to avoid getting his feet burned and possibly to see if Neuro was okay and Garmadon helpfully went to get a mop.

Cole hugged Jay, who squeaked, but did not try to get away, while Lloyd tried to help Jay get out of one of Cole's infamous rib-crushing hugs. "He remembers us, isn't that great?!"

"Cole, I'm breaking!" Jay complained. "I need air!"

As sweet as it was to see Cole so excited about something again, Zane had a feeling that Jay, despite doing much better than he did while he was kept prisoner, was indeed having issues with being held tight enough for bones to break.

"Some moths came and left a message," Zane informed the others as he helped Lloyd pry Jay away from Cole. "It said that there were twelve hours left to save someone before he's gone forever, but that was two hours ago. We think they might be talking about Kai."

"While I was out there, I was stuck in the middle of some weird war between moths and butterflies," Lloyd told Zane. "Oh, and there was this giant lady made of plants and she helped me find Jay when he ran off."

"I found my box," Jay announced. "There's something in it. It's a VIP."

Either Jay had a person inside the box that Lloyd put on the table earlier, or he didn't know what VIP meant anymore. Maybe he just felt left out, though, and wanted to give some news of his own.

It was only when Jay started wiggling that Cole realised that he might not like having his bones crushed and put him down.

"Sorry, buddy."

Jay stayed where he was, on the still-wet floor, as he gasped for air while Zane opened the box that Lloyd brought in.

Inside, there was an odd device, similar to the one that was put together with what came out of the falcon, a pair of earphones and a phone that had somehow stayed intact and fully charged for the past seven years.

And then there was a note that read "Back-Up".

Nothing more, but Zane hoped that it meant that it was a back-up of the device that Jay made to get rid of the Overlord.

The strange devices were handed to Jay, who knew more about them than anyone else in the room. "Can we use this to get the Overlord out of Kai?"

"Yes."

* * *

 _ **Zane (Flashback)**_

Zane was locked up for the past _who knew how many_ years in a prison in one of the hottest, most active volcanoes in all of Ninjago.

He had lost all hope of breaking out when he saw her.

Pixal.

Pixal, who was holding a key-card, and Minidroid, who was angrily beeping and dismantling a nearby device.

She wasn't wearing her purple dress anymore, but instead, a black jumpsuit and a pair of rubber boots. Her silver hair was covered by a black scarf, but Zane knew it was her.

"We have to get you out of here," Pixal told him as she threw something in his cell and ran. "Minidroid!"

Apparently Minidroid was with her, as he came running after her with a series of angry beeps, holding a hammer and a screwdriver in each hand.

"We can dismantle the next one, we're running out of time here!"

Minidroid beeped in frustration and threw his hammer at whatever he was dismantling, causing it to explode behind them.

"Uh… hammer…" Zane groaned. The past two years of heat didn't do him any favours. "Hm."

Pixal gave him one quick look before throwing him across the river of lava and jumping over it.

Behind Pixal, the Nindroids were closing in, getting ready to tear her and Minidroid apart.

In front of her, Zane was helplessly watching as the world turned black.

When he woke up again, he was lying on a sheet in front of an old farmhouse with Pixal, and nobody else, repaired with spare parts and odd pieces.

Pixal was crying.

* * *

 _ **Cole**_

Jay refused to tell anyone how to attach the weird devices he made for the Overlord, claiming that they would mess it up and "break" Kai, but he also refused to get close to the Overlord unless he was tied up and unable to move.

Cole watched as the weird devices made for the exorcism were carefully put where needed (according to Jay).

It felt like it was going to take forever, though, because despite being tied up, the Overlord in Kai's body twitched at times, and Jay would flee from the room and refuse to come back until he was assured that nothing bad would happen.

"Can't you just use your Golden Power to get him out of Kai like you did with your father?" Cole asked Lloyd after the third time Jay fled the dungeon to go into hiding. "I think it might go faster then."

"Actually, I gave up the Golden Power back in the other timeline," Lloyd explained as Zane sweet-talked Jay into coming back to the dungeon. "No more Golden Power for Lloyd."

"Oh."

Jay was back to putting the devices on the Overlord, struggling to get them in the correct position for fifteen minutes before he squeaked and ran off again, with Zane right on his heels.

Cole went over to where the Overlord was to make sure that he couldn't escape, tightening his restraints just to be safe, while Lloyd sadly ate a piece of lettuce that was found growing outside earlier when they went chasing after Jay for the first time.

" _ **He looks like some kind of goat, going at that leaf,"**_ the Overlord said, sounding like the idea of Lloyd eating a vegetable was unthinkable. _**"Go, little goat-boy, go."**_

Of course, Jay, who was just starting to come back, heard the Overlord speaking and ran off screaming again.

 _This is going to take forever…_

* * *

 **Things must be very wrong for Lloyd to be eating a vegetable.**

 **Pixal had to drug the Overlord so he wouldn't freak Jay out more than he already does. Poor girl has to do everything around here...**


	48. Enough

_**Nya**_

Nya was nearly run over by Jay, who was on his way to the exit from the school dungeon while she was on her way to find something to drink.

Jay's first reaction to seeing her was, of course, running in the direction he had come from.

Then he must have remembered what caused him to run from there, because he was running towards the exit again.

Zane came running from the dungeon with Pixal right behind him, leaving Jay to choose between going back to the dungeon he had just escaped from, or having to go past Nya to get out of the school building.

"Jay, we don't have the time for this!" Pixal scolded, going ignored by Jay, who was trying to put himself in the fridge for some reason, as if nobody would know he was there if he went in there, despite there being witnesses. "As soon as you're done attaching the device and activating it, the Overlord will be gone and you don't have to worry about him anymore."

"What's going on?" Nya asked, helpfully removing Jay from the fridge.

Much to her surprise, he allowed her to do so without fighting against her. He just let out a sigh and that was it.

"We managed to find something that can get the Overlord out of Kai, but Jay's the only one who can attach it without causing permanent damage to him," Zane told her. "Pixal drugged the Overlord and we tied him up so he wouldn't try to escape, but whenever the Overlord does as much as twitch, Jay tries to run away."

Behind Zane and Pixal, Jay was walking back to the dungeon.

"You know, the Overlord _did_ hurt him pretty bad," Nya told the other two. "He'd pretend to be Kai and would tell him that he was going to break him out, only to…"

" _ **Ow!"**_

"Jay, what the heck, man?!" Cole's voice demanded from the dungeon.

Nya ran after the two robots, heading to the source of the surprised yelling, which was everybody in the dungeon except for Jay, who was now calmly attaching some rather odd-looking devices to the Overlord on Kai's body, and the Overlord, who was angrily wiggling and trying to get away, but was completely unable to thanks to the Vengestone restraints keeping him down.

" _ **I will destroy you! You will wish that you were back in your little cell when I'm done with you! For the rest of your life, and for the entirety of your afterlife, I will seek new ways to destroy you!"**_ the Overlord kept screaming.

He had a nasty-looking broken nose and a black eye, both which would still be there after the Overlord was gone, and possibly cause Kai a lot of pain when the shock of what happened hit him.

Next to the table the Overlord was strapped to, there lay a baseball-bat, all innocent, on the floor.

"What happened?" Pixal asked the two who remained in the dungeon to keep an eye on the Overlord.

* * *

 _ **Jay**_

Sure, he hit the Overlord with a baseball-bat, but to be honest, he wanted to do that for seven years now and the guy deserved it.

That long-awaited "Ow!" escaping from the Overlord's lips, and the knowledge that he would never be able to get revenge for that hit powered by seven years of supressed frustration and anger aimed at the Dark Lord.

After that, he felt much better and ignored the Overlord's threats coming from Kai's body. Something about destroying him and an afterlife, he didn't really care now.

According to the others who stayed behind, there wasn't a lot of time left before Kai was gone forever, and while the two of them weren't best friends (that honour would go to the guy who kept hugging him), he didn't want him to die.

"I thought he freaks out whenever the Overlord does as much as twitches," Nya's voice spoke behind him.

 _Wait, when did she wake up? I thought she was unconscious…_

"… then he hit the Overlord in the face with it," Garmadon told the other three.

"He had it coming," Jay told them, attaching the final piece of the device to Kai's face. "You have no idea how long I've been wanting to do that."

Jay kicked the bat away from the table as a signal for the others that he was done, but it might not have gone through, as it was not a common signal for anything anywhere.

So, just to make sure that the others understood that he was done, he also walked away from the Overlord and attempted to push Cole off the chair he was sitting on.

"Jay, buddy, you okay there?"

"I'm finished!" Jay huffed. "All done. Just gotta push the button and he's gone forever."

 _Maybe I should have started by saying so. Oh well, too late for that now._

"What button?" Garmadon asked.

Jay grabbed Cole by the face as if it were he who asked that question. "The _button_. You have to _push_ it." Jay took the remote for the television from his pocket and put it on Cole's lap as if he were a cat and the remote was a dead bird. Then, for added effect, Jay took the remote back from him and pushed every button on it as if he were playing a video game with it. It didn't matter which buttons he pushed anyway.

* * *

 _ **Garmadon**_

The Overlord seemed to be in pain as Jay seemed to forget about him being tied up on the table and continued playing with the remote as if he were playing a game with it.

Maybe it was the wrong remote, or he didn't know which buttons to push, or he wanted to make the Overlord pay for seven years of torture.

Cole made an attempt to take the remote from him, but it didn't go well.

The device flew from Jay's hand all the way over to the other end of the room, where it promptly shattered.

"Oh no!" Lloyd ran over to where the pieces lay while the Overlord slowly stopped writhing in pain over on the table.

While the others were all running over to try and put the remote back together, Garmadon found himself having to stop Jay from fleeing yet again.

 _What's going on?_

"Guys?" Kai's voice broke away everyone from where they were crowding around the broken remote. "Am I dead?"

* * *

 **Whoo! Kai's back!  
**

 **All that's left now is to get rid of the Nindroids that worked for the Overlord, free the enslaved citizens, find Wu and Cryptor...  
**


	49. The Busted Man

_**Kai**_

He was gone.

After all these years, the Overlord was finally gone.

At first, he thought that he was dead, but when it was Nya who cut him loose, and not some random dead person, he found that he felt disappointed, as well as confused.

For some reason, all he could focus on was the fact that his sister had a weird new haircut that made her look as if she lost a fight with a lawnmower and was wearing an outfit that reminded him of cowboys, for some reason.

"Your hair looks stupid," Kai told her with a groan as she picked him up and hugged him, sobbing as she did so.

"I went through a wall," she cried, petting his hair. "I thought you were gone forever!"

"Okay."

There were other people there, but they were all the wrong colours, the lighting was all wrong and due to his bruised eye, they all looked like blurs.

Blurs that were leaving, but that was all that he could see when he looked at them.

"My face hurts," Kai mumbled. "A lot."

"That's because Jay apparently hit you with a bat," Nya told him, speaking as if she was talking to a small child. "We think he was aiming for the Overlord."

"He's gone." Kai tried to stand up and go after the blurs that were leaving, but he was out of practice when it came to using his own body, and he just slammed down, landing on something soft that turned out to be a ball of fresh, green lettuce. Someone was eating it while the Overlord was being removed from him.

Nya offered him her hand, but he didn't take it, opting to stay in the lettuce and never getting up from it again.

When she realised that he didn't want to take her hand, she picked him up, like he was nothing but a rag doll, and carried him upstairs.

"He's gone," Kai told Nya again, feeling much more tired now that his initial feeling of disappointment and confusion had worn off. "Was it Lloyd?"

He was aware that Lloyd was back, but he wasn't quite sure how.

It was like someone put a blender to his brain and made a smoothie with it, which was a very gross and horrifying thought, to be honest, but made sense, at least to him, and at least at the moment.

* * *

 _ **Zane**_

After Nya put Kai down in a chair in the old teacher's lounge, he just kept staring at Lloyd with a horrified look on his face until the Green Ninja got uncomfortable and walked away.

Jay, however, appeared to be having a lot of fun, running back and forth after he removed the devices from Kai, playing doctor and stuffing tissues into the Red Ninja's mouth and nose, which Zane removed whenever Jay was out of the room to keep his friend, who had just been returned to them, from death by suffocation.

Kai didn't seem to care at all what was happening around him, watching everyone busily buzzing around him with a blank look and an icepack on his face.

Ash and Neuro were both unfamiliar to Kai, which explained the slight confusion he showed at Ash helping Neuro to the sofa despite Neuro's protests that he was completely fine and could walk by himself.

"They are new," Zane told Kai after Neuro was seated. "Jay and Lloyd ran into the two of them on their way over here, then their car broke down and now they can't leave."

Jay returned to the lounge with more tissues. Where he kept finding them, Zane did not know.

When he found that, yet again, there were no tissues threating to suffocate Kai from every hole in his head, the Blue Ninja sighed and gently patted Kai on the head.

"Don't eat these ones, okay?" Jay told Kai, at the same time telling Zane where he thought all those tissues went. "We're almost out."

Kai seemed to accept that his friend thought that he was eating paper, as he just hummed in agreement and allowed Jay to continue playing doctor.

"It looks like it is time to prepare lunch," Zane announced. "Jay, when you are done there, could you come and help me in the kitchen?"

"No, I'm very busy."

Jay went on as if Zane didn't even exist, "doctoring" Kai.

"Do you want to help Cole catch something?" Zane suggested. "I heard that there are some pheasants lurking in the playground, and those are good to eat."

Jay looked up from where he was working and glared at Zane. "I. Am. Busy."

Raising his hands in surrender, Zane sat down next to Neuro, who seemed rather curious about what was going on. Thankfully, nobody in the room attempted to remind Zane of his false claims of lunchtime, allowing him to make sure that Jay didn't accidently hurt Kai.

* * *

 _ **Zane (Flashback)**_

Minidroid was, according to the newspaper Pixal found, labelled a traitor and melted down for extra parts.

Three days after the newspaper went out, the Nindroids serving the Overlord went nuts, revolting all over Ninjago, freeing prisoners, attacking other Nindroids and running away, giving themselves new names and starting up new lives.

It appeared that it had something to do with the revelation that they didn't have to mindlessly serve the Overlord.

Some remained loyal, others defected and ripped those that were loyal apart.

In their search for the other ninjas, Zane and Pixal came across a secret village made up entirely out of defectors who were inspired by Minidroid's sacrifice.

Pixal and Zane were greeted with open arms by a Nindroid who exclusively wore Hawaiian shirts and Scottish kilts and introduced himself to them as "Hank" before showing them around the village.

It was amazing, but also rather strange.

It was clear that these Nindroids didn't quite know how to react to their newfound freedom and decided to try and pretend that they were humans, something that they failed at pretty hard, even if it weren't for their titanium coating.

They remained in the village for a week before deciding that they had to go back on their search for the other ninjas, when Hank, hearing their plight, took them to a Nindroid who introduced himself as "R-R-R-R-Jim" and appeared to have been completely fried.

R-R-R-R-Jim explained to the pair of them how he had worked in a high-security prison and that his job was to feed the high-risk prisoner twice a day and to alert the head-Nindroid to any suspicious behaviours that the prisoner had.

"One day, I didn't t-t-t-t-remove my fuIUnGers from the tube fast enough," the Nindroid in the diving suit told Zane, "and now I am brooooooo…"

R-R-R-R-Jim's friend, who simply went by the code he went by when still serving the Overlord (ZM156#9) came out of their shared "house", which was actually just a makeshift tent made by sewing their old clothes together, holding a flat piece of wood that held four badly-bade cups full of what appeared to be dirt while R-R-R-R-Jim continued making his broken sounds in the background. "I made us beverages, feel free to take one. He will be like this for a while."

Zane took one of the cups to be polite and sniffed it.

Apparently the "dirt" was coffee. The Nindroids didn't know how to make coffee. ZM156#9 was eating the ground coffee beans from the cup as if it was something one just does.

"…oooooooken."

* * *

 **I don't think a bunch of Nindroids built just for fighting are going to have any idea how to make coffee, much less build a house...**

 **Poor R-R-R-R-Jim, he was just trying to do his job, and now he's all busted.  
**

 **Looks like Kai's also all busted, seeing as he's just... doing nothing. I don't think canon Kai would appreciate it if he gets stuffed with tissues. Please send in your reviews and enjoy!**


	50. Where's Garmadon

_**Jay**_

Jay's fondest memory of his imprisonment was of the time when the power stopped working in the facility and everything was silent, because the Nindroids weren't working, the bright, annoying lights weren't working and whatever kept his tube shut wasn't working, allowing him to get out and look for a way out, but he got lost and the Overlord caught him before he managed to get away.

He didn't remember how long ago it was, but he knew that it was a long time before Zane started pretending to work at the facility to figure out how to break him out.

The few days after the Overlord caught him were a blacked out blur, but the next time the power shut off, he knew to stay in his tube.

 _Maybe that's why Kai doesn't want to do anything. The power went out before for him too._

Kai stopped eating his tissues now that Jay was watching him, and Zane went on to prepare that lunch he was so worried about earlier.

When Neuro fell asleep, Jay found the opportunity to poke Kai in the face.

The former Red Ninja didn't react, so Jay poked him again and again until he made the effort to acknowledge that there was, in fact, a person poking him in the face.

Kai let out a tired-sounding sigh, which Jay took as an acknowledgement of his existence, so he removed the tissues from the other person's mouth so he could speak if he had something to say.

"Did the power go off for you too?" Jay asked, poking Kai's non-spiky hair instead of his face now. He looked really weird with his hair like that.

"No." Kai didn't say anything else. Nothing more, nothing less. Just… "No."

"Don't worry, Zane's making lunch." Jay petted Kai's head as he spoke, no longer poking. "You'll feel better after eating."

 _Wow, his hair's so weird like this. So weird…_

Then Kai sneezed, and Jay remembered that he was still scared of the Fire Ninja.

* * *

 _ **Garmadon**_

Garmadon was just minding his own business, trying to set up communication with the other rebels, when his heart just about stopped.

Three feet from the school, lifting a rock the size of a car to see what was underneath it, was a gigantic stone warrior.

 _Oh no, what's he thinking?!_

At a speed that was unnatural for a man of his age, Garmadon flew from the school building and tried to get the attention of the gigantic stone man.

"Dareth!"

 _Dareth can see what the stone warriors see, right? Oh, why did he have to put on that stupid helmet?!_

The stone warrior put down the rock it was holding and picked up Garmadon instead.

It was uncomfortable, but not unfamiliar, as back before Dareth retired the Helmet of Darkness, the rebel leader would sometimes use the stone warriors to carry anyone who wasn't fast enough to get away on their own.

Considering that both his wife and his son died before the start of the rebellion, Garmadon wasn't in the right emotional state to run away from a turtle, much less a Nindroid created for the sole purpose of catching and killing people.

"Listen, you have to go tell Dareth that we got the Overlord out of his host," Garmadon told the stone man. "We're going to need help shutting down his armies, so find Dareth and tell him that we're going to need to find out where we have to go to shut them down."

Very slowly, the stone warrior nodded. Hopefully it understood…

* * *

 _ **Lloyd**_

Lloyd was looking for his father when a shriek from the teacher's lounge summoned him, ready to attack.

When he opened the door to see what was going on, a blue blur escaped from the room while Neuro and Kai watched it escape with absolutely no effort from either one of them to stop it.

"What freaked him out this time?" Lloyd asked the two Elemental Masters lazily lying around in the lounge.

All Kai did was turn around to look away from Lloyd.

"Your friend sneezed and I think it might have scared him," Neuro answered. "It was weird, though, because he's been feeding him tissues and petting his head all afternoon without a problem until then."

"Hey, did either one of you see where my father went?"

Kai didn't do anything.

Neuro answered, telling Lloyd that he had no idea where Garmadon was.

Lloyd thanked him, then he left to see if he could find anyone who knew where his father was.

Along the way, he found Zane, who was sitting on the floor with the most confused expression Lloyd had ever seen on a person, holding a shaking and whimpering Jay, surrounded by dust and feathers.

"Lloyd, I'm sorry, but can you tell the others that lunch will be late?" Zane asked. "He came out of nowhere and he does not seem to wish to wish to let go. Do you know what caused him to freak out like this?"

"Kai sneezed." Lloyd looked in the kitchen in case his father was hiding there, but all he found was unprepared food.

"I _knew_ I shouldn't have left him there alone, of _course_ he's still jumpy around Kai." Jay whined some more. "Lloyd, could you perhaps do me a favour and bring me a blanket from my room before you tell everyone that lunch has been halted? I think Jay is feeling cold. I have several in my closet."

And so, Lloyd halted finding his father so he could find a blanket for Zane.

* * *

 **Poor Kai probably feels guilty for scaring Jay like that. Lloyd is on a quest for a blanket. Garmadon gets the King-Kong treatment from a stone warrior. Fun day.  
**


	51. Whoops

_**Cryptor**_

The old man was right about the Overlord no longer being able to control him now that he had been out of range of a control-tower.

"What are we going to do once we have liberated this ship of yours?" Cryptor asked once they arrived at the Overlord Museum. "I don't think that the Overlord will be all too happy if such an important trophy of his goes missing, and I am certain that he will send some of the best bounty hunters after us."

Wu giggled behind his beard, then he put on his serious face again. "I know of a place that the Overlord will not be able to go. As soon as we have the ship, we're going there."

"Need I remind you of what happened last time a Nindroid broke free of the Overlord's control? I do not wish to be used for scrap like the others were." Cryptor tested the road in front of him and the old man with a swift kick. "It's gravel."

Wu blinked at him, then he nodded sagely. "Yes, that is what roads are made of. In the ancient days they used wood or stone, but these days, they find it easier to use bricks or gravel."

"That sounds fascinating," Cryptor told the aged Spinjitsu Master. "We're going to need disguises if we are to steal back your ship. We are both well-known enough for people to recognise us if we go out on the streets undisguised."

Wu paused. "Where are we going to find disguises in the middle of nowhere?"

Cryptor shrugged. "Don't ask me, I'm just a Nindroid."

Wu turned to look at Cryptor, then he shrugged and went back to keeping an eye out for passing enemies as they walked.

* * *

 _ **Zane (Flashback)**_

R-R-R-R-Jim had broken down twice, forgot what he was talking about fifteen times and had, at least four times, started screaming like a fire alarm without warning anyone.

And the damaged Nindroid _still_ didn't give them any useful information about where he used to work.

Zane wanted to grab the broken Nindroid and shake him until his batteries fell out, but he knew that doing that would be counterproductive and wouldn't help him find his brothers at all. In fact, it might anger the other Nindroids if he just attacked one of their own out of frustration.

"… p-p-p-p-power went o-o-o-o-f-f sometimes," R-R-R-R-Jim offered after he was reminded that he was giving Zane and Pixal important information about where he used to work. "A-a-a-a-aaaaah… Almost got out the first t-t-t-t-time it ha-ha-ha-haPEnEd-d-d-d, but the Ooooverlard StAPPed him before he could escape."

Pixal had a thoughtful look on her face.

"There was a l-l-l-l-lot of LIghTninG out the-e-e-e-e…"

Zane was ready to scream from frustration, but Pixal grabbed him by the arm and dragged him away.

"I think I have an idea of where this prison might be," she whispered in his ear. "We should get out of here so we don't waste any more precious time."

Zane nodded, very carefully, and followed her out of the makeshift village.

"There are five possible locations," Pixal told him, "considering that he mentioned a lot of lightning being there, as well as frequent blackouts. We should go see if any of these places contain prisoners, and free them before the Overlord does whatever he does to those prisoners."

 _And one of my brothers may be one of those prisoners._

* * *

 _ **Zane (Present Day)**_

Lloyd didn't even have the time to retrieve a blanket from Zane's room before Jay suddenly seemed to realise something and ran towards his old bedroom (which nobody had the chance to clean up yet) as if he thought Zane was the Overlord or something.

A few seconds later, Zane, who was still dazed from being tackled in the middle of the hallway, heard the sound of the light being flicked on and Jay's bedroom door being slammed shut.

Then came the screech.

"MY ROOM!"

The screech was a mixture of shock, anger and confusion.

Zane snapped out of his daze and ran over to see if he could do anything to calm his brother down.

He shooed away a confused Lloyd, who had the blanket he was asked to bring only minutes ago and was trying to give it to him, and opened Jay's bedroom door, finding the mess that had been there for the past seven years, unchanged except for the sweater Jay was wearing and the missing picture frame.

Sitting on the floor, trying to put together the nearly microscopic pieces of the destroyed photos with expired tape that lost its stickiness over the years, was Jay.

"Are you alright, Jay?"

Jay shook his head. "No, I'm not."

Lloyd popped himself into the room with the blanket and looked around. Somehow, he turned even paler as he took in the sight around him. "What happened here?"

"No," Jay mumbled, as if that was a good answer to Lloyd's question. "It didn't. Not really."

Zane had no idea what his brother was talking about, but thankfully he wasn't the only one. In fact, Lloyd looked like he knew even _less_ about the mystery subject than Zane did, as impossible as it was.

"Are you okay?" Lloyd asked, inching closer to the Blue Ninja. "You've been weird all morning."

Jay shook his head wildly and drunkenly walked towards his bed. "I _said_ no! Didn't you listen?!"

"He wasn't here earlier," Zane told Jay, who was kicking his bed as if it had personally insulted him. "What are you doing?"

"I'm sleeping in your room," Jay announced as he walked away. "I'm not coming here again."

While that was understandable, it now meant that Zane was going to have to find a new room to sleep in for the night.

"Hey, do you smell something burning?" Lloyd asked, sniffing the air suspiciously.

That was when Zane remembered that he forgot all about lunch.

* * *

 **Poor Zane got kicked out of his room... lunch got burned... others are going to be so mad... poor guy...  
**


	52. Behind the Glass

_**Nya**_

When Nya entered Zane's room, looking for him, she found Jay staring at his own reflection in the White Ninja's mirror with huge, disbelieving blue eyes, as if he couldn't believe that the person in the mirror was staring at him.

She opened her mouth to ask him if he'd seen Zane anywhere, but he looked like he was busy with something else.

So, instead, she turned around to leave and see if she could find Zane elsewhere, when Jay's voice spoke up from behind her, worried and confused. "Is that really me?"

"What?" She immediately put her hands over her mouth, trying to keep that one little noise she made from escaping, but it was too late, and he was now looking at her. Before she could do anything else, he had her by the arm and angrily dragged her to the mirror to show her his reflection.

" _THAT!_ Is that me?!" With a shaky finger, Jay pointed at the reflection, that, of course, now included Nya, but he didn't seem to notice or care about _her_ reflection. "Is it me?! Tell me the truth! Do I really look like that now?!"

Nya had no idea how she should answer his question, so she just blinked at the franticly shaking boy holding her arm.

Apparently, that answered his question, because before she could stop it, he was on the floor, hands in his lap and staring at the mirror as if he was having war-flashbacks. "It's me… oh wow, I look terrible…" There was some frantic giggling, then it stopped again just as suddenly as it started. "I need a haircut…"

"Should I get someone to help?"

Jay shrugged. "I don't know. Give me the knife in your boot."

Nya did as she was told (how Jay remembered the knife in her boot all these years was a mystery) and with no detectible emotion, and dangerously shaky hands, Jay tried to give himself a haircut, but instead, dropped the knife on the floor, staring ahead at the mirror in front of him with complete apathy, just like he used to stare at her and the Overlord back when he was still locked up in that glass tube.

No longer being able to take any of this, Nya left the room, taking her ignored knife with her.

Jay didn't seem to notice or care.

* * *

 _ **Lloyd**_

The moths were back again.

Solemnly fluttering around him, accompanied by a deep humming sound and the familiar little silver moth that brought him to this messed-up timeline.

His father mentioned that there was a man controlling them, or ordering them around, or he _was_ the moths… it was all very confusing. His father agreed with him.

But back to the moths at hand…

They seemed to be studying him, a little green one sitting on his shoulder, a large blue one sitting on his nose and a black one biting his ear (he didn't even know moths _could_ bite). The little silver moth flew circles around Lloyd's head, until a soft whistle from it caused every single moth in the swarm to form a huge ball of whistling, humming moths.

It there really was a person controlling the moths, like his father thought, then it wouldn't be weird if he was caught trying to communicate with them, but if his father was wrong…

Well, he would look like he was crazy. Despite this, he still called out to the moths.

"Are you the one who brought me here?"

No answer from the moths.

"My father says that you are a person made up of moths." Lloyd stepped back when the moths moved closer. "Or are you controlling them with your weird powers?"

The moths let out a thousand collective giggles as they spread out around Lloyd.

"What about all of the above?" the moths asked in a sing-song voice. "Or maybe _none_ of the above… To be honest, we're not sure ourselves. But what we _do_ know, my dear little green boy, is that you have a very important choice to make. Either way, you lose."

Then the moths were gone.

* * *

 _ **Pixal**_

Pixal found herself to be extremely popular among those looking for Zane.

So far, Nya, Cole, Lloyd and a traumatized-looking Kai had all come to her, looking for Zane.

Each one of them had a different reason for needing him, though. Nya was freaking out about Jay being in Zane's room, where he was freaking out about his reflection. Cole had hurt himself while out trying to catch something in the woods for lunch and needed stitches. Lloyd was freaking out about some moths giving him a very cryptic message that he needed Zane to translate for him and Kai…

Well, Pixal wasn't sure if he wanted Zane, but he was mumbling something about ghosts while haunting the kitchen, staring at Lloyd and making him uncomfortable whenever he entered the room.

Just like the rest of them, Kai left after he was done making his … requests.

Garmadon came back inside, looking like he had been through the Underworld, also requested Zane, before going to lie down.

"Zane seems extremely popular today," Pixal commented to Garmadon. "Everybody is looking for him."

The old man nodded quietly.

"I believe that he is in classroom 5B."

Garmadon got up to go to the classroom, but Pixal raised her hand, stopping him in his tracks. "He seems upset, so perhaps it would be better if you wait for him to come out on his own."

Very calmly, Garmadon went back to lying down.

"I gave Cole a towel for his cut," Garmdon told her. "I don't think he's going to need stitches. Lucky, since we don't have any sutures anymore."

Pixal nodded. "Yeah. Lucky."

* * *

 **News time! I got a pair of prescribed glasses and I never knew things were so blurry without them until I put them on! Baby bird is upset because he can't get to my eyeballs anymore, though, and he stared at me weirdly for a while. 8)  
**

 **Moth Man does not know how to deal with frightened green children... But you have to give him points for honesty.**


	53. Reflecting

_**Jay**_

He didn't like his reflection.

It looked weird and kept staring at him like he was some kind of horrible monster here to devour some souls, and it made him uncomfortable to know that he looked like that.

He _tried_ asking the reflection to stop staring at him, but he also knew that it would only copy his movements and not do anything else. In the end, he found a blanket and covered the mirror with it so his dumb reflection couldn't bother him anymore. He would have kicked the mirror too, but he didn't want to risk breaking another mirror, especially with what happened last time. He was too tired to deal with whatever bad luck breaking another mirror would bring anyway.

 _Nya took her knife. That sucks, I wanted to cut my hair. It looks weird and it's annoying. Maybe Zane has some hair ties in here that I can use until I figure out how to cut my hair. Maybe some string or rubber bands…_

Zane didn't have any hair ties or strings, and every rubber band Jay picked up broke up into dust the moment he tried to use it, so instead, he just tried to figure out how to use the bed.

Zane's bed didn't have a space underneath it, so he couldn't sleep under it like he had back in his own haunted room. The thought that he might have used his bed wrong entered his mind, followed by the suspicion that it would be more comfortable _on top_ of it, like with a sofa or a table.

He tested his theory by jumping on it once or twice, discovering the springiness that the bed apparently had.

"Interesting…" Jay slowed down to a bounce and head-butted the rectangular soft-thing.

It was soft, like that weird fluffy thing Zane brought to him while he was locked up, but not quite as sticky. He stood up again and stepped on the soft-thing, stomping it good and hard a few times before he grew tired of that and tested the pillow again. Not as soft anymore, but it still seemed like a good place to rest his head.

The blankets were bothering him, so he threw them off the bed without a second thought, humming to himself as he found Zane's fluffy snowflake-covered dress-thing and deemed it as suitable to wear when one goes to bed.

He considered taking off his clothes before putting it on, but that didn't seem appropriate, being naked in someone else's clothes, so instead, he put it on over his claimed sweater and put himself to bed like that.

* * *

 _ **Nya (Flashback)**_

She was curled up in a little cell, wrapped up in a scratchy blanket and waiting for the Overlord to hurt her too, like Pythor told her he was doing to everybody else in the prison.

While Nya appreciated not being stuck in a specially designed prison like the ninjas were, or killed, like Lloyd was, she didn't understand _why_ she wasn't killed or tortured.

"You're lucky," Pythor hissed at her one day. "The Overlord feels that you might still be of use to him, as a hostage or as a possible servant. Sadly, that means I can't use _you_ for my… experiments."

She crawled away from him, and hours later, she heard one of Pythor's "experiments" screaming in agony.

Three days after her conversation with Pythor, the Overlord came to get her, dragging her out of her cell by her hair and telling her to get dressed and make herself pretty, because he was taking her to see "someone".

She was given a dress just like the one she used to wear back before all of this, and a grumpy-looking Nindroid fixed her hair so it would look the same too, just longer.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked the Overlord, hiding his host's body with his evil power. "Who are you taking me to? Is it Kai?"

The Dark Lord didn't answer as his Nindroid pilot flew them to a facility in the middle of the desert.

When they finally entered the prison, the Overlord dragged her along with him, using as much force as he could without hurting her too much.

In the middle of the facility, there was a large, well-lit room. In the middle of the well-lit room, there was a glass tube, containing a person in prisoner's garb, holding their knees to their face, which was masked by their shaky, overgrown auburn hair, growing well past their shoulders.

The Overlord threw Nya down to the floor, causing her to let out a scream in surprise, but the person in the tube didn't seem to notice.

Then the beast knocked on the glass, which _did_ get the person's attention. And hers as well, as he used his host's painfully familiar voice to provoke the person on the other side of the glass. "Jay? I brought you a guest. Remember Nya?"

Jay's head popped up and glared at the Overlord. "Go. Away."

Kai's voice laughed. "Oh, come on, don't be like that, you didn't even say hi to your little girlfriend... or was that _ex-_ girlfriend? You know, since that whole thing with your former best friend?"

Jay didn't speak, but he _did_ turn away from her and the Overlord.

"I just wanted you to see her one last time. After all, you _do_ know what today is."

Nya's heart nearly stopped when Jay stormed the glass separating her and the Overlord from himself, screaming. "GO AWAY! I DON'T CARE WHAT TODAY IS!"

* * *

 **And now the screaming will start...  
**

 **I only did two POV's this time. Happy almost Mother's day!**


	54. Midnight Caller

_**Garmadon**_

Garmadon found Zane where he was busy cleaning up classroom 5B, ridding the room of dust and spiders as if they were to blame for everything that went wrong in the past few years.

"Are you alright, Zane?" Garmadon asked the Nindroid. "Pixal said that you were upset."

Zane angrily swept a cloud of dust at the man, causing him to sneeze.

"What's wrong?" He walked over to one of the desks Zane was wiping with a damp cloth, having dropped the broom in the middle of the floor. "Maybe I can help."

Zane shot him an angry glare, then he sighed and his expression softened. "I suppose that I expected that getting rid of the Overlord would fix everything immediately. I understand that it's only been a few hours, but so far, the only thing that happened was Jay kicked me out of my room and Kai turned into a dead fish."

"He got turned into a dead fish?" Sure, Zane may have meant that he was _acting_ like a dead fish, but with that strange moth-guy running around with his vanishing girlfriend, and the possibility that there were others like them, Garmadon wasn't quite sure anymore.

Zane looked confused for a moment, then he shook his head. "No, he's just not doing anything."

"Oh, thank heavens, with everything that's been happening around here lately, I thought you meant literally."

The Nindroid blinked at him. "Okay. Why did you come to see me? I know it can't be just to find out if I'm okay."

"You're right." Garmadon rubbed the back of his head. "You see, with the Overlord gone, there is a huge mess that needs to be cleaned up, and I know you don't like the idea of joining the rebellion…"

"Of course not," Zane stated. "I didn't see any of you doing anything to free the Overlord's captives until you ruined me and Pixal's mission to get Jay out of his cell."

"Yes." Garmadon decided not to point out that Zane and Pixal didn't free the other prisoners either. "Look, Ninjago's going to need its heroes to fix things again, and as we both know, you kids are short two members."

"I suppose we can't wait until they are well again," the Nindroid suggested. "But if you are going to try and find someone to replace them with, you should at least ask them and Cole if they're okay with it. Cole's the leader, and as fragile as Kai and Jay are at this moment, they deserve to know."

Garmadon almost forgot about Zane's sixth sense. "Ah, yes. Perhaps we should ask them about this in the morning, though. It's been a long day, after all."

Zane didn't answer.

* * *

 _ **Lou**_

It took Lou a while, but he finally managed to contact Garmadon's communicator and the sensei accepted his call.

He wasted no time in yelling at the man. "Where have you been?! Everyone on this side is freaking out, wondering if you're still alive! There are rumours going around that you all got killed and Dareth lied about the mission being a success! When I get my hands on you…!"

Garmadon didn't say anything, or even laugh at the idea of Lou being able to do anything against him (with Lou not really being a demigod like him and Lloyd).

The line was perfectly quiet for a whole ten minutes, before a familiar voice spoke in the background, one he thought he would never hear again. "What are you doing out of bed? I thought you were tired or something."

"Is that Cole?" Lou asked, franticly waving his arm at the rest of the Royal Blacksmiths to keep them from making too much noise for him to hear what was going on.

"It's shouting at me," another voice, a little less familiar, answered from close enough that Lou knew that it wasn't Garmadon who he yelled at.

"I think that's my dad's," Lloyd's sleepy voice spoke. "Who's yelling at you?"

"Who is this?!" Lou demanded. "Did you steal Garmadon's communicator?!"

"I'm going to flush you down the toilet," the person who answered the communicator said calmly. "You're yelling too much and it hurts my head."

There was a series of "no's" in the background, and Lou's was loud enough to wake everyone in the base, he was sure.

"Is that my dad?!" Cole's voice asked, screaming.

There was a struggle, the person who previously had the communicator screamed as if he was being murdered, and Lloyd started panicking in the background.

"Dad?" Cole's voice asked amidst all the screaming and panicking. "Is it really you?"

 _It's Cole! It's really, really Cole!_

"Cole!" Before Lou knew what had happened, the rest of the Royal Blacksmiths were hogging the communicator, trying to find out if he was okay, where he was, where everybody else was, what happened and what that screaming was.

* * *

 _ **Cole**_

It was lucky that he found Jay before he flushed the communicator down the toilet, or else he would never have known if his father or the rest of the Royal Blacksmiths were okay.

Unfortunately, Jay refused to stop screaming ever since Cole wrestled the device from him, making it hard for him to hear what his father had to say, and there was a whole lot of other voices on his father's side asking him questions he was having trouble hearing.

"Come on, Jay. It's not that bad," Lloyd told the Blue Ninja, or rather, former Blue Ninja, speaking as if he was talking to a child. "Why don't you go back to bed?"

Jay stopped screaming and made himself comfortable right there on the bathroom's floor. "Okay."

With that problem solved, Cole found himself able to hear his father and the rest of his band much better. "So, what were you guys saying?"

"Are you okay, son?" Lou asked, having calmed things down on his end. Probably. "Who was that screaming?"

"It's just Jay."

"Is he… okay?" Cole heard the concern in his father's voice and felt slightly jealous about it. "His parents have been bugging Dareth about him ever since he came back, and…"

"He's…" Cole blinked at the peacefully sleeping Jay on the floor. "He's doing much better than when we first got him back, I guess. He's sleeping, though, so…"

For the next hour, it was just Cole and Lou, talking to each other over the communicator, getting interrupted by a Royal Blacksmith who had a question of his own every now and then, only for the call to be ended by Garmadon, who had been looking for his communicator all over and wanted it back.

* * *

 **I'm thinking that I should make this into a series, as what I have planned for what happens next does not quite fit the summery and Lloyd has to wait for Borg (if he's still around) to build a time machine again to go back anyway. I'm thinking about the gang cleaning up the mess left behind by the Overlord and Vanishing Lady and Butterfly Dude acting as main villains.**  
 **Please tell me what you think, if you would read it and if you think it's dumb. Hope you enjoyed this chapter, I'll epilogue or end soon!**


	55. Epilogue

_**Moth Man**_

The terror he felt when he realized that his brother was in Ninjago almost enough for him to consider letting his mate get what she wanted and stop discreetly helping the funny little mortals save their home, and instead, contact the elders himself and ask them to blow the entire place up.

But there was something about the idea of letting the funny little mortals just die to satisfy his own fears that didn't sit right with him. He was banished because he saved a mortal (although very long-lived) creature who had become his friend, despite the council telling him to leave it to die because it would mean the end of their plans to build up a new world in the one that was now known as Ninjago.

His friend would be upset, and although he no longer remembered the creature's name, or what exactly it was, he didn't want to disappoint his long-dead friend by betraying its friendship.

The council angrily sent him to Ninjago so he would learn a lesson about listening to them, but of course, it just made him mad enough to go over to the Cloud Kingdom and mess with the writers for three centuries, something that prolonged his banishment (it was worth it) and led to his ability to travel between the realms being stripped from him (also worth it). If only the council would banish his mate too, so she would stop influencing Ninjago in ways that can and have (many times) ended in disaster.

After all, she didn't care about the council unless their actions directly affected her.

"There are places in Ninjago she would _love_ to lock herself up in," he told a caterpillar that was munching on a leaf. "If she could only stay here, we can _both_ be happy."

"Why can't she?" a voice asked from the shadows of the nearby trees. When he looked up, he found a pair of golden eyes staring at him, with slit pupils like those of a cat. "After all, I come and visit you. _All. The. Time._ "

He knew who the voice belonged to.

In another life, the creature and his brother were close allies.

It was only understandable that he was nervous of what he shared with the thing in the shadows, which could only be described as a monster, in both mind and body, when it wasn't disguising itself.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, his voice even and his head turned back to the caterpillar so he wouldn't have to look the thing in its eyes. "Did one of your… _pets_ … escape again?"

The thing chuckled darkly at that. "They're not important. A little bird told me that you told someone about the flower and the sheet. Smart move. What were your motivations for saving that boy, though? The thing with the flower, _that_ I understand, but the boy…"

He didn't answer, but the thing in the shadows seemed to find one anyway, as it chuckled again before it vanished into the darkness, hopefully going somewhere far, _far_ away.

He could see why his brother feared the shadows in which the creature lurked.

With a deep breath, he turned into a swarm of delicate golden moths, flying towards Ninjago City to see what he could do to keep the council from destroying the realm he grew to tolerate as his home over the years he'd been trapped in it.

* * *

 _ **Lloyd**_

It was like Kai was part of the décor in the teacher's lounge.

Nobody acknowledged that he was alive, or even there, unless it was to stare at him or to move him out of the way, and in return, Kai didn't pay any attention to the others, or what they were doing.

"He's still not doing much," Lloyd told Cole as he and the Black Ninja as they looked through the rooms for anything that might have survived the past seven years of neglect. "I tried poking him with a stick, but…"

"It's only been three days, you can't expect him to be back to himself so quickly," Cole answered, shaking the dust off an old T-shirt he found that belonged to one of the students who used to go there. "There's a lot of laundry here. I just hope the washing machine still works, I _really_ don't want to do all of this by hand."

"I think Zane's fixing it." Lloyd picked up a hoodie. "These kids didn't clean their rooms much, did they?"

Cole glared at Lloyd for a full minute before getting back to work. "They were probably trying to get their junk together when the attack happened and had to leave them."

"Sorry."

"It's okay. So, your dad told me and Zane that he's thinking about recruiting someone to help out until Kai and Jay are better. Any thoughts?"

"It's going to take a lot longer to train someone new than it would take for them to get better," Lloyd answered. "And I'm pretty sure that they'll be mad when they're aware again, so maybe we shouldn't replace them."

Cole hummed to himself as he threw a schoolbook in the "firewood" pile. "And if they _don't_ get better?"

"They'll get better. I mean, we _all_ got hurt pretty bad by some bad guys before, and we always got back up again. This is no different."

"This is _very_ different," Cole argued. "I don't know how it happened, but Kai got possessed by the Overlord, and if Neuro's telling the truth, he was aware of _everything_ , and was unable to do anything about it. Every single gruesome detail of everything the Overlord did with his body."

"Jay told me that he saw the Overlord kill me."

"Exact- Wait, what?" Cole spun around at breakneck speed. "He _saw_ it? And he didn't do _anything_?!"

"Jay explained it a little weird, but from what I understood, he didn't get there on time to stop the Overlord," Lloyd explained. "I think that's why the Overlord did whatever he did to Jay, so he wouldn't tell anyone else."

* * *

 _ **Dark Guardsman  
**_

There were two main groups: The Light Ones and the Dark Ones, not quite enemies, but not quite allies either.

The Light Ones tended to take credit for dealing with monsters that only the Dark Ones would deal with, and the Dark Ones took credit for the evil that the Light Ones would bring into the realms.

They wouldn't have it any other way.

But the guard thought otherwise when he saw the delicate little butterfly fluttering into the dungeon. As a Dark One, and a low-ranking one of those at that, he didn't have enough power to defend himself from the horrors he knew the butterfly brought, and he _knew_ if the prisoner he was guarding got out, there would be big trouble for everyone that got in the way of this terrible monster.

Despite his fear, he still armed himself.

The figure formed, appearing similar to a kind young man on a quest to rescue an innocent soul, but the guard knew otherwise. With a soft, unreadable expression, the man came closer and closer.

The guard held his spear ready to impale his enemy if he got too close.

"Oh, there's no need for that, Akakios," the man said, giving a kind smile to the guard, whose heart wouldn't slow down. "Why don't you put down that heavy spear and simply let me take my friend home? I know you don't want to fight me."

"The Ancients sent you to the Realm of Madness to rot, NOT to break your so-called "friends" out of captivity!" the guard yelled. He knew it was a bad idea to yell, but he also knew that, while the butterflies would and could end him within seconds, his shouts would at least carry through the dungeon, warning the other guards to come and help.

There was a swarm of butterflies fluttering all around him, and then, there was nothing.

When he woke up again, it was to the gentle darkness of the Departed Realm, a place he truly never expected to go.

* * *

 ** _Whelp.  
_**

 ** _So this is going to become a series, and this is the first part finished. Next part: Garmadon tries to figure a way to get Lloyd back home, ghosts come and visit, and a bunch of bugs get everywhere._**


End file.
